


Weta

by McParrot



Series: Family History [1]
Category: Torchwood
Genre: Angst, Family History, Hurt/Comfort, Jack's history, M/M, Team
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-12-16
Updated: 2019-12-16
Packaged: 2021-02-26 04:28:01
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Rape/Non-Con
Chapters: 7
Words: 22,896
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21817399
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/McParrot/pseuds/McParrot
Summary: An attack by an insectoid alien causes Jack great distress and causes one of his deepest secrets to be revealed.
Relationships: Jack Harkness/Ianto Jones
Series: Family History [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1572061
Comments: 2
Kudos: 45





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Early S2 Jack/Ianto.   
> Warning! non consensual slashy sex.
> 
> This story has a bit of everything and a few surprises.  
> Once again, what seemed a simple idea has grown into a big story. What is it? Jack angst definitely. We have an alien attack, we have slashy sex in a not quite consenting situation, so that makes it sort of rape. We have mpreg, again only sort of (I never thought I’d ever write mpreg believe me, and really, technically I haven’t). We have hurt and comfort, hidden secrets and unexpected consequences and we finally get to the bottom of that comment about Jack never getting pregnant again.  
> Can I make you laugh, cry and go ew yuck all at the same time? 
> 
> McParrot is uploading all her fic to AO3  
> These pieces have not be updated or re-edited  
> This was originally posted, a chapter a week on FF.net, and completed Oct 2008

‘It must definitely be in a vehicle.’ Tosh’s voice filled their headsets. ‘It’s moving at highway speed and its track is following the road. Keep on the motorway, it looks like it’s heading out of town.’

Jack put his foot down and dodged right as they merged into the traffic. ‘Any idea yet what it is?’

‘No idea. It just appeared on the screens after that rift activity. Definitely alien though.’

‘Any reports of sightings or damage?’ Gwen asked.

‘Nothing.’

‘We don’t want to take any chances.’

They followed the trace for the next hour. Blue lights flashing Jack drove like a maniac. Actually he didn’t drive like a maniac, he drove typically Jack, which meant fast, fearless and with no regard for the personal safety of other road users, trying to catch up with the other vehicle but it had too much of a head start. ‘I hope we’ve got enough fuel for this,’ Owen muttered at one stage. 

They dodged and weaved getting up to speeds of 160km/h, insane passing manoeuvres throwing them around. ‘I think I might throw up,’ Ianto said drolly from the back seat. Jack grinned loving it, his eyes bright and a wide smile on his face. ‘Try it and wear it.’ He swerved again. Ianto laughed.

‘I could go and visit my granny in Bristol,’ said Gwen.

‘Approaching warp speed,’ said Owen

They were closing on the trace, only a kilometre or so behind it when Tosh suddenly shouted, ‘It’s turned off. Take the next exit. It looks to be going west.’ Jack roared up the exit ramp. ‘Which way Tosh?’

‘Right.’

They sped through a small village, scattering old ladies with their shopping. 

‘Right.’

The tires squealed. 

‘Two hundred metres. Left. Left then right.’

‘Was that left then left then right or…’

‘Yes.’

‘Okay.’

The vehicle barrelled around a corner and Jack hit the brakes. They were all flung forward into their belts as they came to a stop with the SUV’s nose resting against a solid wooden rail gate. ‘Shit.’

‘It’s a farm.’

‘Fucking countryside.’

‘It’s stopped moving,’ Tosh said. ‘About three hundred metres from where you are.’

They all looked at each other. No one moved. Ianto sighed. ‘I’ll get out then shall I? I’ll open the gate?’

Jack grinned. ‘If you would, thank you Ianto.’

‘Very good sir.’

‘Can anyone see anything?’

‘Grass.’

‘Farm buildings.’

‘A house.’

‘No people.’

‘No.’

‘Cows. I can see lots of cows.’

Jack drove through the gate and stopped while Ianto closed it.

‘I can smell lots of cow shit.’

‘Jack,’ that was Tosh in their ears. ‘It’s to your right and moving slowly, walking pace.’ The only thing to their right was a large barn. The double doors were open and a small utility vehicle was parked there. Jack parked beside it and they got out guns drawn. Owen put his hand on the bonnet. ‘It’s hot. This is the vehicle.’

‘Hello,’ Jack called out.

The building was full of farm implements, piles of things like rope, old tools, car parts and hay. A man appeared out of door to the side. ‘Oi. Who are you?’ He saw the guns and recoiled. ‘What the…’ He lifted his hands in the air.

‘We’re with Torchwood,’ Jack informed him, while the others kept scanning for signs of an alien. ‘Have you just driven here from Cardiff?’

‘What if I have?’

‘It’s about fifty metres from you to the north east,’ Tosh told them. Owen and Gwen started moving towards that corner of the barn.

‘Did you have any passengers?’ Jack asked the man.

‘Not that I know of. Look what’s this about?’

‘Can we look in the back of your truck please?’

‘What? Why?’ He saw the look on Jack’s face. ‘Okay, all right.’

‘Can’t see anything,’ Gwen said. ‘Are you sure it’s here?’

‘No. It’s moving, slowly, moving away from you.’

Owen sounded tetchy. ‘Can’t see anything Tosh. It would help if we had an idea of what we were looking for. You know, even what size.’

‘Can’t help you. Sorry.’

‘It’s probably the size of a tea cup.’

Ianto swung open the truck door, gun at the ready. Jack could tell instantly that there was no threat in there. ‘What is supposed to be in here sir?’ he asked the owner.

‘Why, what do you mean? It’s my new carpet. I’m doing up the house.’

Ianto grimaced. ‘You might want to order some more.’

‘Sir,’ Jack said. ‘We have reason to believe that you have inadvertently carried a fugitive from Cardiff. Can you please go to your house and lock yourself in. If there are any other people around take them with you. We’ll be in to see you when we’ve apprehended it.’ He waved his gun for emphasis. 

‘It?’ the man asked.

‘Just go!’

‘Okay guys,’ Jack told them when the man had gone. ‘Whatever this thing is it is big enough and has teeth or claws enough to turn a roll of carpet into mattress stuffing. Watch out. Where the hell is it?’

‘Every time someone gets close it seems to move away.’

‘That’s a good, sort of,’ said Gwen. ‘I mean, it seems to be scared of us, not want to hurt us.’

They split up. Jack went through the door the farmer had originally come out of. He found himself in a stable. Most of the stalls were disused and stacked with junk but in the one at the far end by the exterior door he could see a couple of ears flicking. A couple of steps closer and he confirmed it was a horse.

‘Owen, you’re nearly on it.’

‘Where? Where?’

‘No. It’s moving. Jack. Coming right at you.’

He spun around, couldn’t see anything other than the horse. Realised that it was tossing its head, it sensed something. His heart was thumping. ‘Where Tosh? I can’t see anything.’ An invisible beast? The horse was going berserk, whinnying and trying to crash out of its stall. ‘It’s right with you Jack.’ His hair stood on end. He spun three sixty and saw Owen and Ianto coming through the door, saw looks of horror on their faces and heard them shout. Too late he started to follow their gaze but before he could even lift his eyes something heavy was crashing down on top of him.

Owen and Ianto saw the creature drop out of the rafters, great insectoid jaws and armoured legs slashing at its prey. Jack screamed as the glossy brown creature attacked. As he went down great spiny legs raked at him as the jaws tried to latch on to his head. He could feel the flesh on his back tear open. Pain ripped through him. He tried to fight back, managed to twist around, tried to get his hands up to defend himself as the animal reared over him. It curled its body revealing an enormous long stinger at the end of its abdomen. 

The ugly beast had its jaws around Jack’s head as it slashed at his body with the stinger, shredding his clothing and the flesh underneath. Not a stinger Jack thought with a strange clear corner of his mind, an ovipositor. It made little difference when it was used as a weapon. The animal used it like a sword. There was no way he could get away. 

Ianto nearly died himself as he heard Jack make a dreadful sound, his body thrashing, trying to escape even as his guts spilled out of his abdomen. It didn’t matter that he knew Jack would be okay, at a primitive level the scene was one of pure horror.

Firing wildly Ianto and Owen raced across the floor as the creature stabbed deep into Jack’s belly over and over again. Within moments it was over, the animal reduced to a twitching mess of limbs and yellow goo and Jack, dreadfully wounded, in a ghastly heap beside it

‘Jack!’ Ianto dropped to his knees beside him. He fully expected him to be dead. The smell of open viscera and bowel contents was revolting. Literally blood and guts. But Jack was still alive. His eyes fixed on his. They were full of pain and fear. ‘It’s all right Jack, you’ll be all right.’ Instinct took over and Ianto tried to gather him into his arms until a hiss of pain stopped him. He tried to fight down panic and think what to do. He reached for his hand and held it tight. ‘I don’t want to hurt you. You’ll be all right. We’ll get you right.’

Jack’s eyes were full of tears. He tried to say something by couldn’t get it out. Gwen appeared. She’d gone back to the truck for the first aid kit and was throwing it open, pulling out dressings. She and Ianto worked, trying to cover the wounds, stop the bleeding. Jack moaned as they applied pressure. There was so much blood. ‘Owen,’ Ianto called desperately. ‘We could do with some help here.’ Jack’s pulse was jumpy and weak under his fingers. His skin was a nasty grey colour. 

Jack was going into shock. His body knew that it didn’t want to die and it used all the defence mechanisms it had trying to save him. His peripheral circulation shut down trying to increase blood flow to vital organs. Blood was shunted from non vital areas like limbs and stomach to heart, lungs and brain. It made him feel terribly sick. Abruptly he vomited. ‘Roll him over,’ Gwen shouted grabbing him by his shoulder and pulling. ‘Don’t let him choke.’ 

When it was over they lowered him back onto this back, Jack’s hand still desperately grasping at Ianto’s. His breathing was erratic, painful and the pool of blood seemed to be getting bigger.

‘Owen!’ Ianto shouted. ‘Leave that fucking thing and come and help him.’ How could Owen be more interested in a dead alien than in helping Jack

‘Yan mate,’ Owen said gently, he felt for the pulse at Jack’s throat. ‘He’s going to die. He’s only got minutes at the most. The quicker it happens the less it will hurt him. Leave him alone.’

But Jack held on. He was stubborn, he’d always been stubborn. Under all the pain part of Jack’s brain was still functioning. He knew he was better to die. That he would revive and after the initial shock he would be all right. But his body didn’t know that. His body always tried to live. Hoards of hormones flooded his body sending clotting components, repair tools and extra nutrients to injury sites. His body did everything it could do to survive.

He felt so sick. It hurt. It really hurt! Then quietly it didn’t. Some part of his mind shut out the pain, he knew he hurt, could hear himself moan, but couldn’t actually feel it anymore. He was floating slightly. He was very cold.

Ianto held Jack’s hand, trying to give him some comfort. ‘How long’s it been?’ he asked.

‘Nearly half an hour,’ Gwen said.

Owen felt Jack’s pulse again, took his blood pressure and looked at the inside of his eye lids. ‘He’s holding on, I don’t know what with.’

Jack gave another terrible moan. His eyes were open but he wasn’t seeing them anymore.

Biting his lip Ianto looked at the others. Gwen and Owen both nodded. Rising up on his knees he leaned over Jack. He kissed his forehead then carefully pinched Jack’s nose and placed his other hand over his mouth. He held them there. As Jack’s weakened body started to thrash Owen put his hands over Ianto’s and they held on tight. Ianto was nearly blinded by tears.

Eventually the body under them went limp. Gwen felt for a pulse. They waited.

‘He’s gone

Ianto lurched away and was sick.

Ianto gathered Jack’s dead body into his arms, cradling him against his chest, feeling his head loll back over his arm. Jack was dead. He looked dead. Ianto had seen dead people before and Jack looked dead. Ianto had also seen Jack like this before and always it seemed to take just that bit too long before suddenly the limp body wasn’t dead anymore. Jack was back, there was something there, something not dead. This would happen some considerable moments before he came back to life. He watched the wounds on Jack’s face disappear, saw Owen fascinated lift the dressing from his abdomen and watch it repair itself. Ianto couldn’t bring himself to look at that. Then the body jerked in his arms and Jack gave a great painful gasp. His eyes opened, he looked confused, then he recognised who was holding him and smiled. He blinked, still breathing hard and sat up. He grabbed Ianto’s hand, a private gesture and gripped it. ‘Well,’ he said brightly to the others. ‘That was unpleasant.’ Quietly so that they couldn’t hear him, ‘I was having a really good day,’ into Ianto’s neck.

Owen did hear him. ‘I am having a good day,’ he said, ‘a new alien to play with and I got to see your abdominal cavity regenerate. You really need to let me study what happens and see if we can work out how sometime.’

‘No,’ Jack said. ‘I really don’t.’ He shuddered.

‘You,’ said Owen Harper, ‘are amazing.’


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Warning: this section contains non consensual sexual activity.

Ianto and Owen manhandled the dead alien into a body bag and then into the back of the SUV. It was like a very large very ugly grasshopper with armour. Gwen tidied herself up as best she could and went to deal with the farmer. Jack could do little to help because his clothes were shredded. He wrapped himself in a blanket, climbed into the backseat and made himself as comfortable as he could. He wasn’t feeling well, not surprising really, he’d lost a lot of blood and although his body had repaired itself it would be a while before his haemoglobin levels caught up. He felt nauseous and exhausted.

Owen drove home. Jack and Ianto were on the back seat, Jack dozing in Ianto’s arms. He woke and turned a little trying to get comfortable. Ianto shifted to try to help. ‘Are you all right?’

‘Yeah, doing okay. Cold. Can you fix my coat?’ 

‘Yes Jack,’ Ianto told him. ‘I can fix it. I always do, don’t I?’

Jack kissed him and Ianto happily kissed back. ‘I’m alive,’ Jack said. ‘Isn’t that wonderful?’ He twisted around until he was lying on top of Ianto, pressing against him. Amused Ianto could feel his aroused cock, pressing against his leg.

‘Yes Jack it is wonderful.’ He grinned at this happy Jack feeling his own cock rapidly standing to attention. Mmm, he kissed him, enjoying the contact. Jack must be feeling better. Jack deepened the kiss, became more insistent and Ianto pulled away slightly. ‘Not now love.’ He motioned towards the front with his eyes. ‘This isn’t quite the right place. Is it?’ It was a shame that they couldn’t indulge here and he pressed his hips up into Jack’s as a promise for later. Jack however didn’t seem to have a problem with here and now, grinding back into him and growling. Christ, he knew Jack had few scruples about where and when and who was watching, but Ianto had. He just couldn’t get too carried away, NOT with Owen in the front.

Jack didn’t seem to want to stop. He kissed him again and Ianto went with it. He guessed kissing was all right. It wasn’t as if they hadn’t kissed in front of the others before, although, they had all been pretty drunk. Dying like that must have been pretty upsetting - if Jack needed some snogging to make him feel better, well Ianto didn’t really mind, it was just they usually did this sort of thing in private. ‘No,’ he murmured. Jack’s hands were at this waist, grabbing his shirt and pulling it out of his pants. No, he wasn’t really liking this. He grabbed for Jack’s hands as he broke the kiss and leaned back. ‘Don’t Jack. Save it for later. Okay?’ Jack lunged after him so that the back of his head banged against the window as he captured his mouth again. ‘Ow. Jack don’t.’ Things got really confused. Jack had a hand on his cock, pressing and rubbing. His body responded, after all this was Jack, but his mind didn’t like it. There was something wrong. He didn’t want this, not here. Not now. ‘Jack don’t. Please.’

‘Come on Ianto.’ His hands had got his pants undone and were pulling down his trousers. ‘We’re alive. It’s great.’ A hand worked its way into his underwear. Ianto groaned as Jack’s hand expertly cupped his sensitive skin. It felt so good. ‘Come on Yan.’ He kissed him again, his mouth hard and insistent. He couldn’t back away any further, Jack weighed as much as he did, was roughly the same size as him and was equally as strong. He was lying on him keeping him down. An arm came around him holding him still as he tried to struggle at the same time his trousers were being hauled further down his legs. 

‘Jack,’ he hissed, trying to keep his voice down. He didn’t need the others to know what was happening. He wasn’t getting through. ‘Jack, stop it. I don’t like this.’   
Jack dragged Ianto down onto the seat. ‘No!’ Upper body holding him still and mouth glued to his Jack used his free hand to remove his own trousers. Ianto realised he couldn’t stop him. He panicked. He’d never seen Jack like this before and it was frightening. He was strong and he wasn’t going to stop. Ianto struggled even as Jack rubbed his cock up against his, started forcing his legs apart. He felt his arm around his chest, knew he was going to try and flip him.

Then suddenly Jack was gone.

Owen and Gwen couldn’t help but notice the amorous goings on in the back. It was amusing to start with, then a bit squicky as they realised things were getting really serious. Bloody Harkness, Owen thought. He always knew he was a really kinky bastard but he didn’t think he’d ever shown any signs of quite this much exhibitionism before, not in front of him anyway. He was a bit surprised at the Teaboy going along with it. Could be interesting. He couldn’t quite picture how they were going to manage it, there wasn’t quite enough room. Then he started to realise that Ianto wasn’t going along with it. He caught Gwen’s eye. She seemed to be having the same sorts of thoughts he was. Carefully they both drew their guns. Owen pulled off the road.

Jack lay on the side of the road tangled in his undone trousers and the blanket that had been around him when they left the farm. He stared up into the barrel of Owen’s gun in disbelief. ‘What the fuck…’ Realisation flooded through him. What had he done? Owen saw his eyes widen in shock, his face go white. ‘Ianto?’ Jack yelled, panicked. He went to leap to his feet, but Owen kept the gun on him. He held his hands out, beseeching. ‘Ianto. Are you all right? Did I hurt you?’

‘Oh I think you hurt him,’ Owen said, his voice cold. ‘I think I’d call that pretty close to rape.’

Jack looked completely anguished. ‘Yan? God! Fuck, I’m sorry. Yan?’

Gwen had thrown another blanket over Ianto and he straightened his clothing and sorted himself out underneath it. He was shocked and completely ashamed. He was aware that his face had flushed bright red. At the same time he felt sick. ‘Yan,’ he heard Jack call again. Ianto hadn’t even noticed that the car had stopped until Owen had grabbed Jack by the collar, jammed the barrel of his gun into his temple and yelled to get off him. Then he’d yanked him out of the car. Ianto was grateful, he supposed, although it was hard to know if he would have been more embarrassed if things had gone ahead than he was now. He still thought he could have probably handled the situation, after all Jack had never done anything he hadn’t wanted in the past. But he hadn’t been taking no for an answer this time. He couldn’t understand it. 

Frantically Jack tried to straighten his clothing which was near impossible as it was torn to start with. He felt sick. Owen let him stand up although he still kept the gun on him. He was shaking. He felt very odd, confused, frightened. He wrapped the blanket tight around his body, covering himself. ‘Yan, that wasn’t me. I don’t know what happened, I’m sorry. You know I wouldn’t hurt you. I wouldn’t force you, you know that.’

Ianto looked at him stonily. He’d thought he’d known that, but it had happened anyway. ‘But Jack, you did.’

Gwen suddenly keyed her Bluetooth. ‘Tosh love, are you there?’

‘Sure thing Gwen. Why have you stopped?’

‘Long story. Tosh, can you do another scan for alien life forms please.’

‘Yeah. Sure,’ Tosh’s voice sounded puzzled. ‘It’s with you.’

‘Can you check harder please. Be more precise. We’ve got a dead one in the boot. Is there anything else?’

‘Sure,’ although Tosh sounded very unsure. ‘Just a minute…’ The delay filled them with dread. ‘Oh,’ Tosh breathed, ‘you’re right. I’m picking up the dead one, but there’s something else…’

‘Where exactly?’ Owen asked tersely.  
‘Beside the vehicle. On the driver’s side.’

‘Oh shit.’ They all stared in horror.

‘What?’ Tosh called. ‘What is it? What’s going on?’

‘Tosh honey, don’t panic,’ Gwen told her, ‘but that’s Jack.’


	3. Chapter 3

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Jack’s suffering and Owen shoots his mouth off.

The rest of the ride home was unpleasant for all of them. Jack insisted that they cuff him and not just that his hands were cuffed but that another set attached him to the arm rest on the door. He sat huddled under his blanket, devastated, trying not to look at Ianto.

After a brief internal battle Ianto decided to remain in the backseat. He believed Jack, that he hadn’t meant to hurt him, that the alien that was somehow inside him had made his do this, but he still had trouble sitting there and not recoiling from him. However he knew that Jack, his Jack really needed him right now. So he sat beside him and gave him what forgiveness he could manage. 

Just before Gwen started the car Jack had looked at him. ‘Have you got your gun?’

Ianto looked at him with dread. He knew what he was going to say.

‘If I even look at you wrong, shoot me. Okay?’ He looked at the others. ‘All of you. Don’t let me hurt anyone. Shoot me in the head, at least buy yourselves some time to subdue me.’ He looked anguished. ‘Please don’t let me hurt you.’

‘I’m all for that,’ Owen said. 

It didn’t help lighten the mood. They all knew he was letting Gwen drive so he could watch Jack like a hawk.

Jack showed no signs of being under control of anything alien the rest of the way home. He just looked sick. 

It was a long drive. 

By the time they got back they realised he really was sick.

Owen came round to release the cuffs from the door. He was worried, Jack was grey, sweaty and looked as if he were in pain. He had no idea what whatever it was inside of him was doing to him. ‘What’s happening Jack? Are you all right?’

‘No’ Jack said shortly. ‘Headache from hell,’ He stood up shakily. ‘Don’t put me in a cell Owen. Please don’t put me in a cell.’

‘I don’t know Jack. You know we need to contain you until we know what we’re dealing with. We can’t risk…’

‘I know that!’ Jack shouted. He looked shocked at his raised voice. ‘Sorry.’ He shut his eyes, opened them again. ‘You’re right. We can’t chance it getting out. What are you planning to do?’ 

Owen grabbed his arm as he stumbled. ‘I’m going to examine you, and then I’m going to examine the body. Tosh is going to crunch things in her data base and we’re going to figure out what it is. Then we can work out what to do.’ He looked at Jack sympathetically. ‘Okay?’

‘It laid eggs in me,’ Jack said. ‘It was female. I realised later, that stinger thing was an ovipositor. That’s what she was doing. Laying her eggs.’

oooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo  
Downstairs Owen very obviously placed his gun on a cabinet within reach. Then he uncuffed Jack and together they removed what was left of his clothes. He helped him up onto his examination table where Jack lay down with relief. Owen covered him with the blanket and folding a towel placed it under his head for a pillow. ‘God you’re hot.’ Owen ran his scanner along his body, he whistled. ‘You feeling feverish Jack?’ 

‘I don’t know what I’m feeling.’ Scared and lonely was what he was feeling. Ianto seemed to have disappeared.

‘You’ve got a temperature of 38.7. This thing is really messing with you.’ Owen gave him a full physical examination, starting at his head and working down. He poked and prodded. ‘Headache?’

‘Oh yes.’ He ran his hand over his temples, wincing.

Owen looked in his eyes making him wince, felt the glands at his neck. ‘Nauseous?’

‘Yes.’

‘Are you going to be sick?’

‘Not at this point.’ Jack nearly grinned. ‘I’ll keep you posted.’ 

‘So that’s a possible?’

‘Definitely possible.’

Owen placed a bowl on the cabinet.

They worked down.

He took blood and ran it through a machine. Jack lay there, letting Owen do what he wanted. His head was pounding and his body ached deep in his bones. It was like the worst case of flu (and Jack only ever got THE worst cases possible. This was the worst of the worst). ‘What’s the verdict?’ he asked quietly when Owen seemed to have run out of things to poke.

‘I was right. It is messing with you. Your blood chemistry is completely out of whack, your hormone levels are going crazy and you’ve got an incredible immune response going on, I’ve never seen anyone’s white count so high. Your body seems to recognise it’s got a foreign something on board and it’s going all out to get rid of it. I don’t know how successful it will be though.’ 

Jack was pleased to see Ianto appear at the railing above the bay beside Gwen and Tosh. He was dressed in clean clothes and his hair was wet. He’d only gone away to have a shower. He felt an overwhelming relief.

Owen placed his hands low on Jack’s belly, pressed his fingers in, felt lower into his groin. Jack gasped. That really hurt. ‘I think it’s in there,’ Owen said. ‘There only seems to be one. Or if there are several,’ he added,’ they’re all in the same place.’ Ianto arrived beside the table and put a hand on his shoulder. Jack nearly cried with relief. He missed what Owen was saying.

‘What?’

‘Lie flat.’ He had one of his “special” scanning tools in his hand. ‘Let’s see if we can see it.’ He held the tool against his hand to warm it, Jack was quite grateful for that, before lifting the blanket and placing it low on his pelvis. Watching the computer screen and never even looking at Jack he slowly worked it from side to side moving higher and pressing quite hard until he got to the top of his hips. Jack moaned as it pressed against the sore place.

Owen turned to face him and Jack suddenly didn’t like the look on his face. 

‘What is it?’ Ianto asked. ‘Can you see it?’

‘Oh yeah,’ Owen said. ‘I can see it,’ he pointed to a blob on the image on the screen. ‘There it is, just one. It’s about the size of your fist, tucked in down there against your bladder.’ He looked at Jack with a strange light in his eyes. He couldn’t believe what he’d seen and Jack could see him assessing him, looking at him in a new light. His frightened synapses suddenly realised what Owen would have seen on his fancy scan besides an alien egg. ‘That’s not all I can see though is it Jack?’

‘No.’ Jack whispered. ‘Don’t…’ Not now, don’t do it, don’t say this, can’t do this now. ‘Owen?’

‘What?’ Ianto demanded frightened.

Owen should never have said it. He knew that as soon as the words were out of his mouth. Patient confidentiality was an inviolable trust for a doctor, but this was just too good. It answered quite a lot. He couldn’t help himself. ‘My god, Jack. You’ve got a uterus.’

Jack didn’t think he could have felt any worse than he had been but Owen’s words knocked what was left of his equilibrium out from under him. ‘That’s irrelevant,’ he spat. He took a great gasping breath. ‘It is also completely private! Owen!’ He hung on to the edge of the table as the world spun. He couldn’t deal with this on top of what the alien was doing to him. 

‘But no Jack, it might be relevant. Your hormone levels are reacting crazily, if you have…’

‘But I haven’t,’ Jack hissed. ‘Look at your fucking scans, Owen.’ He fought to pull himself together. He had to make his point. Owen had no fucking right. ‘I haven’t got any of the plumbing or associated bits. I had them removed a long long time ago. The only reason I’ve still got my womb is because it was the only piece that wasn’t discrete. It’s attached to my bowel wall and they couldn’t remove it.’

Owen looked at the screen and went slightly pale. Jack was right, there were no ovaries, nothing to account for the spike in oestrogen levels. Then what Jack had said sank in. ‘Are you saying you did once have the “full plumbing”, as you put it? Jack are you a hermaphrodite?’

‘I was born that way,’ Jack muttered through clenched teeth. ‘But I’m not anymore.’ He could hardly breathe. Even after all this time it was incredible the level of pain associated with these memories. He could go decades now without remembering but when he did…

‘Are all people in your time hermaphrodites?’

‘No,’ Jack said shortly. He shut his eyes trying to get control of himself, curling around his damaged body. He felt Ianto’s grip on his shoulder strengthen and felt for his hand. ‘I’m a freak,’ he gasped. ‘I’ve been a freak all my life.’

‘Owen,’ Tosh warned, putting a hand on his shoulder. Jack’s distress was evident. ‘Leave it.’

‘We’ll talk about it another day,’ Owen said. 

Jack abruptly sat up. ‘No. We won’t.’ He was breathing hard, couldn’t stop the tears. ‘Can I shower?’ He pulled the blanket tightly around him. He had to get away from Owen. He needed to get clean. He was still covered with blood and filth from the barn. ‘You can lock me in my room. I can’t… it can’t get out of there.’ He needed to cry.

‘I’ll go with you,’ Ianto said.

Jack gave him a look that was full of despair. ‘Bring your gun.’

‘Make sure it’s a cool shower,’ Owen fossicked in a cupboard. ‘Before you go, take some paracetamol. It will help bring your temperature down which should make you feel better.’

His stomach rolled. There was no way he could do that. He shook his head. ‘I can’t. I’ll be sick.’

‘I’ve got some panadol suppositories somewhere. That might be better. The drug gets absorbed through your bowel wall. Ianto can give them.’

Ianto gave him a filthy look. 

‘I’ll do it myself,’ Jack said. ‘I don’t want anyone doing anything I might mistake as sexual.’ He gave a grimace of distress ‘Why am I having these inappropriate sexual urges?’

Owen looked interested, he couldn’t help himself. ‘Is it happening again?’

‘Yes! God!’ Jack wanted to slug him. ‘Even now, with you bringing that other stuff up, when I feel so fucking sick… and yet I’m… want to…’ He blushed.

‘There could be two reasons,’ Owen said seriously, ‘or it could be a combination of both. The alien egg is really low in your pelvis and it may be pressing on nerves, giving a false sensation of arousal. Or it may be that it is manipulating your hormones for some purpose of its own.’

‘You mean,’ Gwen said disgusted, ‘it wants Jack aroused for some reason?’

‘Yeah, that’s what I mean

Jack got shakily to his feet. Ianto’s strong arm came around him and helped him up the stairs. He felt terribly weak, he needed Ianto’s support and yet he had a hard throbbing erection under the blanket. The temptation to throw himself at Ianto was huge. He was seriously fucked.

‘Jack,’ Owen called after him. ‘Just in case, it might be best not to have an orgasm. We’ve got no idea what might happen if you do.’ They all tried not to think of Carys and the sex creature that Gwen had let out on her first day at work. ‘Mind you,’ Owen added, ‘at least we know it can’t kill you.’

ooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo  
As soon as Jack and Ianto were out of earshot both girls turned on the medic. ‘What is wrong with you?’ Tosh growled.  
‘You fucking insensitive prat.’ Gwen was in perfect agreement. ‘What made you do that?’

He held up his hands and backed away. ‘What?’

Gwen hissed in his face. ‘You know what.’ She was just about mad enough to shoot him. ‘Jack is your patient. You had no right to tell everyone about what you could see on that scan.’

‘But don’t you think that answers a lot?’

‘No.’ Gwen had a way of drawing out that word that set his teeth on edge. ‘And that is not the point. About what exactly?’

‘About his rather ambiguous sexuality to start with. It explains it all.’

‘I thought we’d decided that was because he doesn’t come from now,’ Gwen said.

‘Isn’t everyone supposed to be omnisexual where he comes from?’ Tosh asked.

Owen looked at them like they were idiots. ‘Well that’s what Jack says.’

‘Owen!’ Tosh glared at him. ‘What if it is,’ she added. ‘It is none of our business. None.’ She stamped her feet.

‘Oh for fuck sake, get over yourselves. I haven’t hurt him.’

‘Yes you have.’

‘Jesus! Can we focus here people?’ He unzipped the body bag and they all stared at the tangle of legs and bits of exoskeleton. ‘Now, has anyone seen anything like this before?’

‘Actually,’ Tosh said. ‘I have.’

They looked at her expectantly.

She glared at him. ‘It was in the movie King Kong, you know when they were on Skull Island and there were the giant insects. It looks like one of those.’  
Owen gave her a look of disgust. ‘You really know your movies don’t you Tosh?’

‘Yes. Now,’ she’d done teasing Owen. ‘If we don’t want a repeat of the Alien movie with a thing busting out of Jack’s chest, I suggest we get on with figuring out what this is.’


	4. Chapter 4

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Angst and squicky sex  
> And the name becomes clear.

Jack waited until he was through the door of his office before starting to cry. Instinctively he turned towards Ianto then caught himself and turned away. Hell, he was a mess. Floods of tears at one end with his head exploding in pain and a raging erection and overdose of lust at the other. Fucking alien bug egg. It wasn’t fair. He’d been having a good day.

His body chose that moment to dissolve into a violent bout of shivering and he had no choice but to accept Ianto’s support again. God he wanted to ram into him, fuck him. But he couldn’t, he couldn’t. He thought of Carys and her victims, sad little piles of dust. He couldn’t. Didn’t know that would happen here, didn’t know anything. Couldn’t risk it. He tore away and threw himself down the hatch.

oooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo  
Ianto sat on the ratty old sofa near Jack’s bed watching him writhe in distress. He was sicker than he had been when he’d come out of the shower, he was sure of it. The panadol had helped for a while, he had even managed to sleep a little. But then Jack had roused delirious with fever and in torment from his sexual arousal. He was thrashing on the bed, his arms thrown wide, hands tangled in the sheet, conscious enough to try to keep from touching himself which was all he wanted to do. His hips thrust into his sheet, trying to get contact or some sort of purchase across his erection.

Ianto keyed his Bluetooth headset. ‘Owen, Jack’s not good. Are you getting anywhere yet? Can’t you just take it out of him?’

‘Getting there yes,’ Owen said testily. ‘Answer to the other is still N.O. just like it was the other sixteen times you’ve asked, for the same reason as always. We don’t know what is likely to happen when we do remove it.’

‘For fuck sake Owen. This isn’t the movies and we’re not on a space ship and it is unlikely to cause anything to dissolve. Surely we can just remove it and keep it secure. It’s just another alien. Shove it in a jar of ethanol, dissect it later at your leisure.’

‘Not yet.’ Owen hung up.

‘Yan?’ Jack called from the bed. He was panting, distressed.

‘What is it sweetheart?’ 

Jack’s eyes were bright with fever. ‘Let me do it. Please. I can’t stand this. I’d come so quickly.’ His hands drifted towards his crotch but he caught himself and buried them back in the sheet. ‘Please.’

Ianto was feeling nearly as conflicted himself. Jack distressed made him distressed. Jack aroused… well. ‘Don’t touch. We don’t know what will happen.’

Jack moaned. ‘Need to come.’ He tossed his head. ‘Let me do it on my own. God please. You go out of the room. Can’t kill me.’

‘But it might do God knows what else.’ Cautiously Ianto sat down by Jack’s pillow and reached out to stroke his sweaty hair. ‘It will be all right sweetheart. Owen says they’re getting somewhere in finding out what it is.’ Jack’s eyes closed and he gave a little sigh as Ianto touched him. He was so hot. ‘How’s your head?’

‘Bad.’

‘Poor love.’

‘God. Got to come.’ His hips were bucking up. 

‘Shh. Shh.’ Ianto wanted nothing more than to throw himself across him and hold him still. He wanted to hold his hand. He was afraid to do even that. Instead he held his head and rubbed circles on his temples. It seemed to help. Jack calmed a little although his breathing sounded like he was having an end stage panic attack.  
‘Do you want some water?’ He must be getting dehydrated by now.

Jack shook his head then nodded. ‘Please.’

‘Okay.’ He was filling the glass in the bathroom when he realised that Jack, stark naked had flung himself out of bed and was heading up the ladder. ‘Jack. No!’   
Ianto had been charged with ensuring Jack’s safety, for containing the alien that was inside him and making sure it didn’t get a chance to do any damage to anyone anywhere else. In retrospect what he did probably wasn’t the brightest thing to do but it seemed right at the time. He leapt after him, grabbed a retreating ankle and pulled. The next minute he was on the floor with his arms full of hot naked wild animal. Jack’s eyes were frightening. The pupils were narrowed to mere pin pricks and there wasn’t an inch of Jack showing in them. Why the hell had he left the gun over there on the sofa? Ianto felt a rush of fear.

He held on. His only chance was that Jack was weak from his fever. 

All that sweat had also made him slippery. 

He wrestled with Jack trying to get a hold that would allow him to gain control, the whole time trying to ignore the feeling of Jack’s engorged cock pressing against him, for even if he wasn’t aware of what he was doing he was still Jack and Ianto’s body responded to Jack.

Ianto felt a rush of lust.

Jack snarled and lunged at him cracking his head against the floor. Momentarily stunned he let go and realised as he was flipped over that there was nothing weak about Jack now. A knee crashed into his back forcing him into the floor and removing the air from his lungs as the back of his pants was yanked down. Ianto had dressed in track pants after his shower and Jack simply grabbed the elastic and pulled. He was stopped from pulling the pants down completely because the front was snagged on Ianto’s erection. It didn’t worry Jack, he had all the access he needed.

Even as he fought against him Ianto’s body was giving in. Jack pressed an arm across his back, holding him down as he settled between his legs. Ianto knew what was coming, felt the cock at his arse and with only sweat for lube knew it was going to hurt. And he wanted it. God damn him for a dirty slut but he liked it rough and this was fantastic. 

And if he might die, a corner of his brain asked?

No, it wasn’t going to happen. This was an insect pressing on Jack’s nerves. It wasn’t a pink cloud. 

Ohhh God! He was SO hot. He rocked back to meet him as Jack flung himself into him propelled by his full body weight. He couldn’t possibly die from this, it just felt like it. Teeth sank into the fleshy pad at the back of his neck and he bucked and struggled. He shouted, fighting the sizzling hot body on top of him and welcoming the searing intrusion all at the same time. I’m fucking the devil he thought hazily.

Jack’s thrusts rocked his whole body, grinding him against the ancient linoleum floor, and Ianto matched him even as he fought against having his face rammed into the wall. Flat on his stomach, his own penis rubbed against the floor trapped tight in his stretched underwear. Snarling and biting Jack held him down and fucked him hard. He gave great savage strokes and it was actually over in moments.

Jack’s movements became more frantic, the rocking more intense and Ianto on the verge of dissolving felt momentary panic, what if he died, but it was too much, too good, and Jack bucked and his teeth tore at his neck and his cock hit just right and Ianto’s balls lifted and thrashing and crying and frightened he came… 

Above him Jack jerked. 

And screamed.

And collapsed.

Ianto knew how Jack behaved during orgasm, and that wasn’t it.

oooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo

Ianto fought to catch his panicky breath, pull his eyes open, respond to the world even as a most extraordinary aftershock raced through him. Owen dropped down beside him followed by Gwen, God how embarrassing, and Jack’s hot body was ripped away from him. The world was cold. Scuttling for the wall he fought to get his pants back up, mortified at the situation even as the others turned Jack’s now limp body over and felt for his pulse.

‘Heart attack,’ Owen said, sitting back. Ianto gazed at him in disgust; the little shit had an erection. ‘Well I think that confirms our thinking.’

‘Which is?’ Ianto asked trying not to sound breathless. God his abs were still contracting.

‘We think it wants him dead,’ Gwen said. ‘But it’s chosen the wrong host.’

‘So I wasn’t at risk?’

‘We didn’t think so,’ Owen said. ‘Not a hundred percent. We couldn’t shoot him though because we would have hit you. We had to wait and see. Sorry.’ He gave a leer. ‘Why didn’t you shoot him?’

Ianto glared at him and shuffled over. He was very sticky. ‘How long were you there?’ he asked as he collected Jack’s dead body in his arms for the second time that day.

‘Most of it,’ Gwen told him. ‘You had your Bluetooth on. We came when you called out.’ She waggled her eyebrows at him. ‘That was really hot.’ Then she had the grace to blush.

‘What the hell were you thinking Teaboy? Oh sorry, you can’t think when Jack’s naked can you.’

And that was just so close to the truth that Ianto wanted to beat him to a pulp. He was saved from destroying their working relationship by Jack jerking, then gasping in his arms. His eyes flew open and to everyone’s relief he was back. His gaze swept around the group and gained a comical look of panicked embarrassment when he remembered what had just happened. Then he looked up at Ianto with an expression of pure relief. ‘You were supposed to shoot me,’ he accused. 

‘I didn’t have time.’ Ianto was getting sick of this.

Jack looked like he was going to shout at him. Ianto dropped him, leapt up and gave him a shove. ‘You try holding down a sex enraged, alien infested naked man long enough to get hold of your gun and shoot him.’ He stood looking down at Jack breathing hard. He stuck his foot on his chest and pressed. He knew he had actually diced with death, that things might have turned out quite differently and that if Jack hadn’t been the person he was he would be dead. ‘Dammit Jack! Why does everything to do with you have to be so bloody hard?’

‘Hard huh?’ Jack was laughing!

The next minute Ianto’s foot was wrenched out from under him and he was crashing down into Jack’s arms. Jack held him tight while he fought him enraged. How dare he? He’d been so frightened, so… oh god help him, so aroused. Embarrassed. Full blown rough sex in front of Owen and Gwen and he’d been gagging for it. Fighting dirty he got an elbow in Jack’s guts and when he doubled over brought his head up under his chin knocking him reeling. He scrambled away panting. ‘Next time Jack, you’re going in the cells. I am not babysitting you again. I don’t care if you implode with sexual tension. ’ His anger evaporated with the adrenaline. Owen and Gwen were laughing. Ianto felt his own mouth twitch. ‘Wonder if you’d enjoy shagging Janet?’ He dissolved with mirth. Jack joined in. He crawled over to Ianto and the two of them held each other, laughing hysterically together.

All four of them slowly came back to earth, hiccoughing slightly. ‘You two are amazing,’ Gwen said. ‘You deserve each other.’

Jack and Ianto smiled at each other. ‘How are you Jack?’ Ianto asked. ‘Your temperature’s dropped.’

Jack gave a great smile. ‘I feel fine.’

‘Oh of course you do,’ Owen groused. ‘You always bounce back completely cured of whatever killed you. The trouble is, you still have an alien egg inside of you and it wants you dead. It’s going to have another go at killing you soon. Don’t know if it will be by sexual exertion again, it might have another trick up its sleeve.’ 

Jack put his head on one side and gave him a look.

‘Plus, your body is going to be recognising the alien presence again and will produce an immune response and fever. Again.’

‘Oh thank you Owen.’ Jack looked at him with distaste. ‘I had actually worked that out for myself. I know what’s coming. I was just enjoying this period of respite.’ He grinned at Ianto. ‘I should have done that much earlier.’ He stood up shakily. ‘Why don’t we make the most of this time and you can update me on what you’ve learnt. Why does it want me dead?’ He gestured up the ladder. ‘After you.’

‘Ah Jack,’ Gwen said. ‘You might want to put some clothes on.’ She started up the ladder. ‘I do enjoy the view but it is a little distracting.’ She wrinkled her nose. ‘Actually you could both probably do with a shower.’ She headed up the ladder. ‘We’ll see you in a bit.’

When they’d gone Jack pulled Ianto into a hug. ‘Are you all right? Did I hurt you?’

‘Oh, I’ll be finding fresh bruises for days I imagine.’ He smiled at him. ‘That was absolutely fantastic.’

Jack grimaced.

‘What?’

‘That frisson of death added a little spice to it?’

‘Well yes,’ Ianto admitted, ‘but I didn’t seriously believe I could die.’ He gave a wry grin. ‘Not really.’

‘You took one hell of a risk.’

Jack turned the shower on and they showered together. For all that Jack had told Owen he felt good he actually didn’t. He was weak, very shaky and sick. Ianto could tell. It was hardly surprising, he had died twice today. He didn’t want to let him go. ‘I’m sorry Jack.’

Jack pulled the towel off his head and looked at him. ‘You’re sorry? Why? What for?’

‘I didn’t protect you. You were so ill; I shouldn’t have expected you to control yourself like that. I should have restrained you so you could rest without harming yourself.’

Jack shrugged. ‘No real harm done is there?’ He pressed his hands into his temples. The pain was coming back. ‘Retrospect is a fine thing.’ He shrugged into his clothing. ‘Come on, let’s go hear what they’ve got to say. I’m starting to go down again, I can feel it. Hopefully they’ve gotten over their excitement.’

Ianto snorted. ‘Owen had a hard on,’ he sniggered as he followed Jack up the ladder. ‘And Gwen was creaming herself… Jack?’ Jack came to a dead stop doubled over in the doorway. ‘Jack?’ He put a hand on his shoulder as he made a strangled breathy noise. ‘Owen!’ Ianto shouted. He stuck his head out the door and screamed, ‘Owen!’ 

Jack had his fists thrust into his abdomen. He looked up at him with a look of horror, his face deathly white. Owen, Gwen and Tosh arrived. ‘What is it?’ Owen asked. ‘Jack what’s happening?’

‘It just moved inside of me,’ Jack growled. ‘I could feel it moving. That is so disgusting.’

‘Come on,’ Owen said flinging Jack’s arm over his shoulder. ‘Let’s get you downstairs and look you over.’

Jack moaned and jerked, rolling his pelvis. ‘Oh god Owen, get it out.’ He was beating at his lower belly with his fists, panicking. Ianto took his other side and they hustled him down to the autopsy bay.

‘Jack, calm down.’ Owen heaved him up onto the trolley again. ‘It’s probably getting agitated because you are.’

‘Do you hear that Jack?’ Ianto asked. ‘You need to calm down. You’re making it worse.’

‘It’s disgusting.’

‘I imagine it’s a lot like pregnancy really,’ Owen muttered just a bit too innocently.

‘No,’ Jack shot back. ‘Nothing like.’

Ianto looked at Owen’s smirk and felt such a rush of rage that the world went red. If they didn’t need him so badly…

‘Children,’ Tosh’s voice cut in. ‘I know what this is.’ She looked at Jack and smiled. ‘You were supposed to die.’ 

She had everyone’s full attention. ‘It’s a weta. I mean, I don’t know what its name is on its world but the equivalent thing here is called a weta. It’s a parasite that supposedly kills its host. When the egg hatches it has a nice half decayed corpse to eat. Probably nice and warm too.’

‘Are you saying we have these things on earth?’ Gwen asked. ‘I’ve never heard of them?’

‘Have you seen King Kong,’ Tosh asked.

‘You and your bloody movies,’ Owen muttered.

‘Er yes,’ said Gwen, ‘so what? It’s fiction.’

Tosh brought up a still shot from the movie on Owen’s computer. She pointed to the giant insect on the screen. The scene was from the ravine on Skull Island when the men were searching for the heroine. It did look like the thing that had attacked Jack. ‘But it’s fiction,’ Gwen insisted.

‘Yes,’ Tosh agreed. ‘Yes it is. But Peter Jackson based them on a real insect from his home country of New Zealand.’

‘There is no way things like that are running around New Zealand,’ Ianto said emphatically.

‘Well yes there are. They’re just a lot smaller.’

‘How much smaller?’ Gwen asked.

‘They are actually the biggest insects in the world.’

‘What size?’

‘Mouse size,’ Tosh admitted.

‘Eww,’ Gwen grimaced. ‘That is still a pretty big bug.’

Owen rolled his eyes. ‘So all of this is interesting but totally irrelevant. Yeah?’

‘No. Not quite.’ Tosh ignored Gwen. She brought up a map of New Zealand. ‘There is a minor rift anomaly in the west of the South Island of New Zealand.’ She pointed. ‘It is a remote mainly forested wilderness so unusual happenings there don’t tend to get noticed as much as they do here. However sometimes they do get recorded and when I cross referenced them, things that come through there tend to be from the Hawaiiki galaxies. And when I went looking for insectoids from the Hawaiiki galaxies…’ A picture of their creature appeared on the screen. ‘Voila.’

Even Owen grinned. ‘And,’ Tosh said, ‘unlike the little herbivorous versions that run around New Zealand our baby is omnivorous and likes feeding on carrion at birth.’

‘And that’s why,’ Gwen guessed, ‘it has been mucking with Jack’s chemistry. It’s been trying to get him to die.’

‘And it has actually succeeded twice today,’ Ianto reminded them.

‘So, now we know what it is,’ Jack asked anxiously, ‘doesn’t that mean we know it is safe to remove it?’

‘Tosh?’ Owen asked.

‘Yes,’ she said. ‘I don’t see why not.’

‘Good. Then do it.’

‘How long does the egg take to come to gestation anyway?’ Owen wanted to know.

Tosh scrolled through some data. ‘I don’t know. It doesn’t seem to be recorded anywhere.’

‘I don’t suppose,’ Owen sent a searching look at Jack, ‘that you would consider leaving it to grow for a while. To see what it does. I’d quite like to keep it.’

Jack gave him a look of total fury. ‘Are you out of your fucking mind!’ Ianto had to grab him and hold him back on the gurney. ‘Get this egg, this thing, out of me Owen Harper or I swear I will rip it out with my fingernails and implant it in your arse!’

Owen gave an uncomfortable twitch. ‘Yeah, well,’ he said, maintaining his bluster. ‘It was just a suggestion."

Owen changed back into professional mode. ‘Tosh, have a look in the protocols folder will you. There should be a list in there on how to prepare this room for surgery.’ He turned to Jack. ‘It will take a little while. The whole place will need to be scrubbed’ he rolled the word across his tongue, ‘and disinfected. Tosh and Gwen can get on with that.’ Gwen rolled her eyes behind his back. ‘I’m going to put in an IV line and get you ready. Okay? We’ll do another scan too, see if anything’s changed.’


	5. Chapter 5

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Jack tells all

The scan showed, not surprisingly that the creature had grown. ‘Eww,’ Gwen said looking over Owen’s shoulder at the screen. ‘It’s wiggling.’

‘I fucking know,’ Jack told her. He was finding it very hard to stay still for the scan as he now had painful stomach cramps that doubled him up. 

‘Okay,’ Owen said, taking the instrument off him. ‘That will do.’ 

Jack groaned shivering and curled in a ball. He had a high fever again to go with the griping pains in his guts.

‘I think it’s trying to give you coloitis or something similar,’ Owen said. ‘So you have been pregnant then have you?’

‘Yes,’ Jack hissed through his teeth. ‘Subtle.’ Why couldn’t Owen just leave it alone? He really really did not want to talk about it. He felt Ianto’s grasp on his hand tighten and squeezed back. It had happened so long ago but the pain and the fear and the anguish of that time were as close as ever.

‘You couldn’t have had a normal birth though could you?’ Owen’s hands probed intimately into his pelvis. Jack tried to slap him away. ‘I mean your hips…’

‘No!’ Jack shouted. ‘No, I couldn’t give birth.’ No, don’t talk about it. No, it hurts. Leave me alone. ‘Stop it. Stop it.’ He hurt, he was sick… If he went there, followed those thoughts, he’d break down.

‘Jack shhh. I’m sorry,’ Owen was uncharacteristically gentle, pushing his sweat damp hair back from his brow, using a cold cloth to wipe his face and neck. Jack moaned slightly. ‘It’s all right. I’m going to put a little morphine and a mild sedative in the IV. All right? It won’t put you to sleep, just make you feel calmer and more comfortable. I need you calm. Yeah?’ He didn’t wait for an answer. Jack could feel a strange lassitude come over him as the drugs entered his system. ‘And I do have to ask Jack. I’m not just asking out of a perverted interest. I have to cut into your fucked up anatomy and I want to know what I might hit. I’m guessing that there’s a fair bit of scar tissue in that area. Right?’

Tears were blinding him as Jack unfolded slightly and looked up at them. ‘I couldn’t,’ he said roughly. ‘I couldn’t have a natural birth. I nearly died. WE nearly died. Don’t act like this is nothing. This isn’t some Torchwood freak show. This is my life! I didn’t just have an amorphous pregnancy Owen. I had a baby.’ He fought to be able to speak. The bright white of the walls swam around him. He fought for his daughter, the beautiful child he had never stopped loving. Everything that had happened to him since, the decisions he’d made that had brought him to now, they’d started with her. 

‘I had a little girl.’ 

He held Ianto’s hand so tightly, incredibly grateful that he was squeezing back. Even in his sadness, thoughts of his daughter made him smile. ‘She was a beautiful, perfect, normal little girl.’ He looked up, gave them a watery smile. Now he was telling them they needed to understand. ‘She wasn’t just an anomaly of my biology.’ His mouth twisted with the effort of speaking clearly. ‘Her name was Lyndel. My baby’s name was Lyndel.’ He took a deep breath. ‘And we nearly died.’

Owen pulled up a stool and sat beside him. He stroked his other hand. ‘What happened Jack? Did you have a C section, or do they do something else in your time?’  
‘I was so fucking frightened!’ Jack turned his head searching for Ianto’s gaze. He took some strength from the compassion in his eyes. ‘I was sixteen and I was so scared.’ He gave a sad smile. ‘Someone called my mother.’ His eyes filled with fresh tears. He still remembered her face, his disbelief at seeing her through the haze of pain. ‘I thought she hated me. I thought… she didn’t want me. I couldn’t believe it but she came. And she knew I was in trouble. She… had me put into stasis, like our cryogenics. I don’t know where she got the unit, it would have cost far more than she could ever afford.’ He swallowed. ‘I never worked out how she did it. And then she had me transferred a huge distance, to a big city hospital with proper facilities where they could bring me back and save us.’ 

‘Jack,’ Owen was moved in spite of himself. ‘Are you okay?’ Jack seemed miles away, not surprisingly. ‘I need to know the clinical details. Did you have a Caesarean section?’

Jack looked at him. ‘I can’t tell it clinically Owen. There was nothing clinical about it. It was one of the most fucked up and dreadful times in my whole life.’ A cramp doubled him up again. He gave a small cry.

‘We’ll fix it soon,’ Owen told him placing a hand on his shoulder. He tried again. ‘Your baby, Lyndel? They saved her yeah? Did they have to cut you open to save her?’ He really wanted to know full details, surely medical science would be so far advanced as to be unrecognisable from what it is today. He was to be disappointed.

‘Yes,’ Jack said exasperated. ‘Yes, I had some sort of operation. It wasn’t with a scalpel as such but the end result is pretty much the same. I was so sick; I don’t know what they did. I was haemorrhaging, before Mother even arrived. The doctors didn’t want to waste the blood on me when they needed it for the soldiers. It wasn’t a rich enough unit to have anything fancy like rejuvenation tanks. A camp follower like me came way down the list for resources. Even if I was an unusual case.’ Jack’s descriptions actually painted a picture of somewhere more backwards than now.

The cramps passed for the time being and Jack unwound, felt his eyes start to close. Ianto was sitting on the stool now, bending close, stroking his hair. He kept talking, if only because it took his mind off the unpleasant sensation of the creature clawing at his insides. ‘We lived. It was days before I was aware enough of anything to realise that. I’d been so sure we were going to die. My mother had bossed the doctors into not letting me die.’ He gave a sad smile. ‘When she made up her mind about something you couldn’t stop her. She wanted me to live. I was all she had left.’ He gave a small laugh, ‘She didn’t get it all her way though. She wanted the doctors to remove my female organs while they were doing it, but they wouldn’t, not without my consent so we had to wait. Anyway, I wouldn’t have been able to feed Lyndel if they’d done that. The hormones wouldn’t have worked.’

The thought of Jack breastfeeding was almost more than the group could cope with, but he didn’t notice, dozing off, his cheek resting on Ianto’s hand. Owen was feeding instruments into his autoclave to sterilise them. ‘This will take half an hour,’ he told the others. ‘Then we can operate.’

‘Do you know what you’re doing?’ Ianto asked keeping his voice low. ‘I mean, if you’ve noticed recently, what you cut into is generally dead.’

‘Don’t start.’

But they were distracted by Jack groaning and jerking awake. He grabbed at Ianto’s hand as his intestines tightened in excruciating pain. ‘Arrggh!

‘Can he have more for pain?’ Ianto asked Owen.

‘Yeah. Hang on.’

Jack felt vaguely better as the extra drugs hit his system, the pain reduced but he still felt dreadfully ill. ‘I died of typhoid once,’ he told them. ‘That was a bit like this. But really disgusting.’ God he couldn’t seem to stop talking. ‘Really disgusting! No dignity there, shit for miles. I begged them to shoot me but no one would have anything to do with that idea. When you’re getting nursed by nuns that sort of thing just gets you prayed over more often.’ He giggled. ‘Poor old Sister Philomena nearly died herself when I resurrected while she was laying me out. It was a miracle.’ He shuddered, ‘I was sick for weeks before I died.’

‘Jack?’ Owen asked making connections. ‘Do you need the bathroom?’

‘Not sure.’

‘Let me know. Okay?’

To distract him Ianto helped him into a surgical gown which was going to have to happen soon anyway. He asked about something he’d said earlier. ‘Jack, why did your mother not want you to be female?’

Jack lay there breathing hard, trying to keep a lid on his feelings and emotions as his body fell apart. Even getting his shirt off had been exhausting. Yet at the same time he was on a different level, one step removed from the pain of his body and from his emotions. It must be the drugs. Ianto asked him something. He tried to explain. ‘I was a boy,’ he said. ‘I was always a boy. I think,’ thinking was very hard, ‘I think my parents would have let me be either but I wasn’t a girl. I had all the bits to be one but I never was.’

Ianto rung out the cloth and copying Owen wiped his face and the back of his neck. Jack found it very comforting, like what Mother had done, when he was little, when he’d known unconditionally that he was loved. Before… 

He was spaced out, a little drunk. ‘Most of the time no one knew, I don’t think I cared a lot. Hughie might have known. He was my best friend, I might have told him, I don’t remember.’ A huge lump lodged in his throat. ‘Hughie…’ Why now, why think about this now?

‘Jack?’ Ianto’s voice was so gentle. Owen had been clattering things behind him but he stilled. Jack realised the moaning sound he could hear came from himself.  
‘What happened?’

‘When I was twelve, everything changed.’ The bleakness echoed in his voice. ‘We were attacked. Our quiet nothing little corner of the universe was invaded and my father was dead and I lost my brother.’ His words came out as sobs but no one stopped him talking. ‘I still… I can’t…’ He was breathing hard, fighting to keep control. ‘My mother, she never got over it. I thought… she blamed me. She did. I let my go of my brother’s hand. It was my fault.’

‘Jack,’ Ianto tried to comfort him.

‘It was my fault, I accept that. It was awful at home.’ Jack was wound up now, he couldn’t stop. ‘When we were fourteen Hughie and I ran away to the war. Two young kids. They sent us over the border into enemy territory. We didn’t look like soldiers, or spies. We were just what they wanted.’ 

Jack looked at Ianto in despair. ‘I got him killed!

‘We were captured and they tortured him to death in front of me.’

‘I’m sure it wasn’t your fault,’ Ianto said desperately.

‘It was. I was the strong one so they tortured him in front of me.’ The team were all in shock. They’d wanted to know Jack’s background but no one had envisaged anything like this.

‘Then,’ Jack said, ‘they let me go.’ He was light years away from the hub. He was back on his home world, terribly hurt and so young. He tried to sit up but Ianto held him down.

‘The army… I wasn’t very good. And I was still far too small to be a soldier.’ 

Owen was getting concerned, he wanted his patient calm. That was not going to happen if he kept reliving this old tragedy. He couldn’t work out how to shut him down though. ‘Jack, shh. You’ve told me all I need to know.’

‘I couldn’t go home, Mother made it clear I wasn’t welcome. There wasn’t much I could do.’ Jack shrugged depreciatively. ‘But I was pretty and it was an army camp. I was a pretty boy.’

His lips quirked in an attempt at a smile. ‘Sexual mores are different from here, but even so, there was still a bit of a stigma to being a camp follower and that seemed to be all I could do.’ Gwen and Tosh looked at each other. Was Jack just saying he’d been a prostitute?

‘I didn’t mind,’ he said, but he couldn’t look at anyone. 

‘You know, strangely, most people still didn’t discover I was different. You actually had to get really up close and personal to find out, and if you’re not expecting it…’ he gave a wry laugh. ‘Well, even if I was found out… No one ever found it a problem.’

The others were all feeling a little sick.

Ianto was getting concerned. Jack never spoke about his personal life. This was so out of character, and so very personal. He didn’t want him to wake up when this was over and wish he hadn’t said anything. ‘Jack, it’s all right. You don’t have to tell us.’

‘Don’t you want to know about Albie? Bastard Albie,’ his face twisted into a sneer. ‘He was an officer. He was a bastard but he was my Lyndel’s father. He did something good, even if it was by accident.’ The pained smile appeared again. ‘He discovered my secret and was delighted with the “variety” it offered him so he kept me. No one ever expected I’d get pregnant, though I don’t know why not? I’d had menstrual periods on a semi regular basis for a couple of years by then. It was fairly obvious that things were actually working even though I hadn’t developed breasts.’ He gave a snort. ‘I hadn’t any body or facial hair either. So what?  
‘I still felt like a boy.’

Ianto was nearly in tears. ‘Jack.’

‘I got pregnant. It took me a long time to figure out what was wrong with me and when I did… Albie thought it was just the biggest fucking joke.

‘Men all over the universe were paying huge amounts of money for body mods to allow them to become pregnant and I’d managed to do it one hundred percent naturally! But people didn’t know that you see, I looked like a boy. It looked like he’d paid for me to get it done, like he was well off and one of “the” crowd. He fucking loved it.’ 

Ianto grabbed both of Jack’s hands and held them tight. With Jack lying on the gurney it was hard to hug him. Jack’s pain was breaking his heart.

‘And here we were in the middle of an army encampment, no specialist obstetricians, no expensive doctors looking after me like if I’d really had the mods. No one noticing that I might have all the right organs but I’ve got a male pelvis. Just army doctors patching up battle wounds. And once the thrill had worn off and I was sick and big and not in the mood anymore, well, Albie didn’t care. 

‘I never saw a doctor. It never occurred to me to try and find one.’ Jack looked beseechingly at Ianto. ‘I wasn’t stupid. I researched so much on pregnancy and child birth, but Albie didn’t want to spend the money. I had to do what he said, I had nowhere else to go.’

‘And you were sixteen?’ Ianto asked quietly

‘Yes.’

It was just as well that Albie wasn’t to exist into well into the future because there wasn’t one person in that room that didn’t want to do him grievous harm.

‘And when you went into labour, your hips were too narrow to allow the birth,’ Owen said flatly.

‘Yeah.’ 

Owen crouched by the gurney. ‘But you had to have had some medical care?’

Jack shook his head. ‘Not at first. A woman… Albie got sick of me screaming and went out and this woman came in.’ 

‘He didn’t take you to a hospital?’ Gwen gasped. 

‘No. The woman stayed with me. A long time. She sometimes helped the camp women with… things. I think she thought… I thought… But it went on too long. I was starting to lose it, I had no idea what was going on. I didn’t know I couldn’t do it. I was so frightened, I was bleeding. The pains just kept coming and there was so much blood. I thought the baby was dead. I wished I was dead. Then they did take me to the medical centre. We were in the middle of a battle. The doctors, they didn’t have the facilities, or the time. I think they thought it was too late anyway. Then my mother arrived.’

Jack gave a great gasping breath. It was, Ianto thought, just like when he revived from death. ‘She saved us.’

‘Jack,’ Owen tried to pull him out of his trance. Note to self, don’t give Jack morphine and sedation at the same time, it works like truth serum. Jack had never spoken so freely about his past before. And Christ it was harrowing stuff. ‘Jack, are you there?’

Jack slowly blinked at him like he had to think about it. ‘I’m here.’

‘Good. Where’s here?’

‘The hub.’

‘That’s good. I wasn’t sure you knew that for a little while there.’ He did a quick scanned check of his vital signs. His temperature was soaring which probably had a little to do with the delirious nature of his ramblings. His intestines were inflamed and likely to stop functioning soon. They really needed to get this sorted before that happened. He was obviously in terrible pain even with the morphine. However the sedation was keeping his heart rate down and the drip was keeping him hydrated. Everything else looked fine. ‘I’m ready to start the surgery now. Are you okay with that?’

Jack nodded. ‘Do it. Please.’

‘All right.’ Owen looked at the others. ‘I’m going to need to put you to sleep. I’ll need an anaesthetist. It involves numbers so Tosh you can do that.’ He looked at Gwen and Ianto. ‘You two will be my scrub nurses and fetch and carry for me. You will give me everything I ask for and wipe the sweat from my brow.’

‘Eww,’ Ianto obliged him. ‘I will not.’

‘No, well I’d rather have Gwen in that role anyway.’ The mood lightened which was exactly what he was hoping to achieve. ‘Are you ready Jack?’ Jack nodded. ‘I’m going to put an oxygen mask over your face. Good.’ He had his drugs all prepared, checked with the others, they were ready. ‘You’re going to go to sleep now and when you wake up the egg will be gone and it will all be over.’

ooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo  
Owen quietly worked his way into Jack’s abdomen. It was tricky due to the inflammation and the fact that as Ianto had so thoughtfully pointed out, he was more used to cutting into dead people. Live ones tended to bleed and that made it really hard to see. Plus he had to be able to put it all back together when he was finished. ‘Well,’ he muttered, ‘at least if I do really fuck up I can just finish him off and he’ll come back completely cured.’ He dabbed with another swab as he moved the ureter out of the way. Sweat was threatening to drip into his eyes. 

‘Pulse rate’s going up,’ Tosh told him.

‘Give him another milligram of the blue stuff.’

‘Why did you stop him talking?’ Gwen groused. She noticed him blink and with a grin wiped a swab across his forehead. 

Owen grinned back. ‘Thanks.’

‘He’ll never talk like that again. We’ll never find out what happened.’

‘I’ll find out,’ Ianto told them.

There was quite a bit of scaring in the lower abdomen but possibly not as much as Owen might have expected considering the extent of what had been removed, or repaired, depending on how you wanted to see it. ‘It’s odd, don’t you think, that he comes back completely physically sound when he revives but this doesn’t revert to how it used to be?’

‘I think he comes back to how he was when he was first brought back to life,’ Ianto said. ‘Whatever that was? He’s got scars, on his legs and places. They don’t go away, but any new injury, there’s no sign of it.’

‘There it is.’ They all peered in. 

‘Eww!’  
oooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo

‘Jack, wake up now.’

Jack was deeply and comfortably asleep. He did not want to hear Owen calling to him. 

‘Wake up Jack, I need you to wake up now.’

Groggily he became aware of his ear being pinched. ‘Ow.’ And a pain in his belly. Owen was really annoying. He fought to keep the warm blackness around him but it had gone. He opened his eyes. He was in the mortuary. He remembered. Owen’s face swam in and out of focus. Ianto was just behind him. He blinked.

‘Good,’ Owen said. ‘That’s good. It’s all over. The egg’s gone. We got it and you’re fine.’

A response seemed to be called for but he couldn’t seem to form one.

‘You can sleep now. Ianto and I will stay with you. In the morning, if you’re okay I’ll let you go home with Ianto. Okay?’

Jack nodded, sleep washed up and carried him away.

Oooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo  
A/N this story is really in two parts. This is the end of part one with the nasty stuff. The second part, coming soon, investigates Jack’s relationship with his daughter.  
Hope you want to know about that.


	6. Chapter 6

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The heavy duty physical torture is over, but Jack’s still got his memories to deal with

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> BTW, some people have wikied weta – I prefer this site for having better pics http://www.doc.govt.nz/templates/podcover.aspx?id=33170  
> We used to have a tree weta as a pet a few years back. She was great, just large enough and spiky looking to freak out visitors, but completely harmless. A vegetarian she loved grapes and apple and was very easy to keep in a small terrarium. We called her Freda. I admit to having a thing about weta. In King Kong on Skull island my son and I sat and nearly wet ourselves laughing at the supersize wetas. My son, who was about 8 at the time (and has been involved with me on several field trips to catch the beasties) said – loudly – ‘But Mum, weta are vegetarians.” The other people in the theatre were not impressed.

On the second day of Jack’s recovery he was so snarky and rude that Ianto called in reinforcements. The other three drew straws and Tosh arrived to relieve him. Feeling ridiculously pleased about it he dressed in his suit and went back to work. 

He’d only been at home with Jack for one day but already Owen had reverted to old habits and the Hub was a tip. He didn’t have time to sort it however because the rift alert sounded almost as soon as he walked through the door. Owen and Gwen went out after whatever it was while he over saw the operation on the monitors. It turned out to be was another weta. They managed to net it and bring it back alive, much to Owen’s delight. This one turned out to be male.

Owen released it in a cell where Ianto looked at in disgust. It was a bloody enormous, butt ugly grasshopper with a real mean head on it. It had nipper like jaws the size of his arms. And guess who was going to have to feed it?

Gwen called him up to the hub. Tosh was on the phone. Sighing Ianto went into Jack’s office and took the call privately there.

‘Hi Tosh. How is he?’

He could hear the smile in her voice. ‘He’d a bit happier now. He ate some toast and his tummy’s feeling better.’

Ianto grinned at the way they were talking. Jack really was like a misbehaving toddler. ‘That’s good. Do you want me to come back?’

‘No, not yet. Just be home in time for dinner. I’ll cook something.’

‘Thank you. You don’t have to do that.’

‘Might as well have something to do. Hang on, Jack wants to talk to you.’ She passed the phone over.

‘Hi,’ Jack said.

‘Hi Jack, you feeling better?’

‘Yeah, a bit. Can you do something for me?’

‘Of course.’

‘Can you go into my office…’

‘Already there.’

‘See the cabinet behind my chair, there might be a bit of stuff piled on it.’

Ianto snorted. ‘Yeah!’

Jack ignored him. ‘In the bottom somewhere, probably on the shelf, can you see what looks like a long tin box?’

Ianto crouched down and peered into the little antique cupboard. There were sheaves of paper rolled and tied with string or ribbons. He moved them to look behind, they felt dry and old. It was very tempting to pull one out to look at later. There was also several lifetime’s worth of detritus, a deck of cards, an iridescent sea shell, an arrow head and strangely a half finished piece of embroidery among other things. Then he saw the tin. It looked like a long skinny pencil case made of a grey burnished metal. ‘Found it.’

Jack let out his breath. ‘Good. Can you bring it home please?’

‘Okay. I’ll see you about six.’

‘Thanks.’

ooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo  
Ianto didn’t open the tin. It wasn’t that he resisted the temptation to do so; it was because he couldn’t actually find any catch that would open it. It looked seamlessly smooth with rounded corners. He was sure however that it was hollow and it did open somehow.

Owen said the weta was omnivorous so he gave it the same slop he fed to Janet. It deposited a large log like turd in the corner of the cell. That did nothing to endear it to him. It gave him the creeps. He thought vaguely of accidentally coating it in barbeque sauce and letting it out into the hub, but it was so covered in spiky bits it would probably give Myfanwy indigestion and then everyone would be upset.

It was nice knowing he was going home to food he didn’t have to prepare himself. Hell, half the time he went home via a takeaway shop if he was actually managing to eat at all. It was surprising he was as healthy as he was when he thought about his diet. Coffee, chips and pizza, that was what he usually ate.

Arriving home at 5.45 he discovered delicious meaty smells coming from his kitchen. Taking off his jacket he took in the domestic scene. Tosh was standing at the stove stirring a pot and Jack was sound asleep at the table with his head resting on his arms. Ianto stood there and smiled. ‘Hi honey,’ he said quietly. ‘I’m home.’  
Tosh turned and grinned at him. ‘I tried to make him go and lie down, he’s been flagging for a while now, but he was determined to be up to greet you. He won’t tell you but he’s been feeling much happier since he had a long sit in the bathroom.’ She gave the pot another stir. ‘Cheese sauce,’ she answered his unasked query. ‘Why don’t you see if you can get him to rest on the sofa for a while? It will be at least half an hour till this is ready.’

Ianto put his hands on Jack’s shoulders and kissed the top of his head. As Jack started up he wrapped his arms around him. He was only wearing a tee shirt on top and his skin felt cool. He rubbed his arms. ‘Hi sweetheart. Did you miss me?’ 

Jack leaned back against him. ‘Ianto.’ He blinked sleepily and yawned. ‘Must have gone to sleep.’

‘Snoring even,’ said Tosh.

‘Really?’ He pouted. ‘I never snore.’ 

‘If you say so.’ She caught Ianto’s eye. ‘Why don’t you two go into the lounge and let me create in peace.’

Jack was moving much more freely Ianto noticed. With his accelerated healing processes he’d probably be completely over his operation by tomorrow morning. He for one would be pleased. A sick Jack was a pain in the butt. 

They sat down together on the sofa and he pulled a blanket from where it was discarded on the floor and tucked it around Jack. Whenever Jack was here his place was a total mess. Jack snuggled in against him happily. ‘Did you bring my box?’ he asked.

‘Yep.’ Ianto pulled it out of his pocket. Jack took it with a reverence that surprised him. It was obviously something precious. He stroked a finger gently along the length of the case and when he looked up at Ianto there were tears in his eyes. 

‘Lyndel gave it to me.’ Jack said softly. ‘When I joined the Time Agency.’ He didn’t appear to do anything but the case suddenly showed a seam running along it and the top of it hinged open along the long side. Inside the box were rows of small square holes separated by a grey protective foam. In one of the holes was a small ivory cube. It looked exactly like a dice with no spots on it. Obviously the case was designed to hold many cubes, thirty six of them Ianto did a quick count, and it looked well used.

So many questions filled Ianto’s mind. Jack had, Ianto thought, joined the Time Agency in his twenties, so Lyndel must have lived at least that long, had to have been four or five. Was she still alive? Well obviously not in this life time he told himself. Time travel could easily do your head in. Instead he asked the easy question. ‘What is it?’

Jack took out the little cube and held it tightly in his hand. Bringing it to his lips he kissed it, deeply moved. He raised his eyes and looked at Ianto. His mouth gave that awkward little quirk. ‘It’s called a cube.’

Ianto didn’t laugh, didn’t say anything smart. Just waited.

‘It’s like a DVD, it’s holding a holographic recording. It’s the last message I ever got from Lyndel. It came the day I left the Agency.’ He looked sad. ‘I told you didn’t I, that they’d taken two years of my memories?’ 

Ianto nodded.

Jack indicated the empty box, ‘They’d also taken the hard copies of all my memories of her.’ He chewed on his lip. ‘They were quite happy to let me keep the empty case, just not the messages. Someone helped me smuggle this out. I’ve kept it, but now I’ve got nothing that can play it. I can’t see it again,’ his face was twisted in pain. ‘It’s more than a hundred years since I’ve seen it. I know it off by heart but I thought I’d give it to Tosh, see if she can find a way to make it play.’ He gave a small moan and buried his face in Ianto’s shoulder. ‘I so want to see her again.’ Ianto wrapped his arms around him, his hand over Jack’s holding the cube. 

Jack might be physically better, but emotionally he was still very fragile. The cube was tucked reverently back into its magic box. 

They had a pleasant dinner, beef casserole, mashed potatoes, steamed vegetables with cheese sauce. Jack managed little, his insides still not right. Ianto and Tosh ate with gusto and talked and laughed, helped by a wonderful bottle of French red that Ianto found in his wine rack. 

Jack retired back to the couch and when Tosh came to leave he found himself reluctant to hand over the box. He’d buried his feelings for Lyndel for so long that now they were released again they felt new and raw. The box and its cube, long relegated to just one among many mementos of his life, albeit something so precious he had kept them through all his years, was once again a link to his daughter, his child. He took it to bed with him and fell asleep with it in his hand.

oooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo  
In the morning Jack woke feeling completely well. He needed to celebrate and he and Ianto needed to make love properly, lovingly, to make up for the attack that the weta had caused them. Jack was insistent about that. Ianto might say that everything was all right, that he didn’t mind, but Jack did. He minded terribly that he’d been manipulated and driven to do something that could have seriously hurt or damaged someone he cared about. Yes, he had essentially raped Ianto while under the influence of the creature and therefore he too had been violated. He had been invaded and forced to do things against his will and he needed to be sure that that thing that he’d been that day was NOT him, had no hold on him anymore. And that Ianto truly was all right.

He was. They were. They were late to work.

Owen was on the war path and it was going to take more than good coffee to placate him. The weta had died in the night and was now lying literally belly up in the cell, its legs pointing at the ceiling.

‘You killed it,’ he shouted at Ianto. ‘What the fuck did you do to it?’

‘I just fed it Janet’s slops,’ he answered. Ianto was pleased and not ashamed to show it. Even so, he hadn’t tried to kill it and was annoyed at being accused. The food should not have harmed it. 

‘What’s in that?’

‘Mainly left overs from the Lebanese kitchen down the road. It’s proper food. Just mushed up a bit.’

‘Well there was obviously something that disagreed with it.’

‘And that’s your considered opinion is it? Without the evidence of an autopsy or anything?’

'Children,’ Jack cut in. ‘Ianto’s right. Autopsy it before you start flinging accusations.’ He turned to Tosh, ‘Would you like to update me on the last two day’s happenings.’ Back to the boys, ‘Ianto give Owen a hand.’ Ianto didn’t look pleased.

When Jack entered his office he was brought up short by a large glass jar sitting on his desk. Floating in ethanol was something about the size of two clenched fists. A fine white membrane covered what looked like a dead kitten wrapped in a bag, ‘Eww?’ Jack shuddered. That had been inside of him. It was disgusting.

He picked up the jar and holding it at arm’s length put it outside the door. ‘Tosh can you get rid of that sometime please.’

‘There’s nothing really to report,’ she told him as she came into the room. ‘I wasn’t here yesterday either remember, but there’s been no rift activity other than these creatures arrivals. Nothing happening.’ She smiled softly. ‘Do you want to give me the cube now?’

Jack wistfully smiled back. ‘Yeah.’

She took it carefully from his hand. ‘I’ll look after it. I won’t do anything that will corrupt it or make it unreadable.’

He nodded. ‘That’s good. Because one day I might find another reader and I can play it again.’ He placed a hand on her shoulder. ‘I trust you. I’ve known a few technical wizards in my years, but you’re the first one I’ve ever even thought of asking to look at this.’

Tosh looked ridiculously pleased. ‘Thank you Jack. No promises but I’ll do my best.’

000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000

About three that afternoon Tosh suddenly sat back from her computer. ‘Oh,’ she breathed. 

Owen looked up from where he was filing his reports on the weta. Unfortunately he had concluded that the one in the cells had probably died from a combination of old age and the dry atmosphere in the cells. He’d been trying to work out how much humidity the creatures would need to survive when Tosh made him look up. A small person, about eight inches high was standing on her keyboard. He laughed. ‘Well will you look at that. A Jack Harkness action figure."

‘Except,’ said Tosh bending down for a closer look at the slightly translucent doll like figure. ‘This one is female.’

‘Lo Lee,’ the figure said, reaching forward slightly, the wide mouth starting to break into a smile. The image shimmered, the figure stood back, ‘Lo Lee…’ Forward zzzt. Back. ‘Lo Lee…’

‘It’s on pause,’ Owen said.

‘I think you might be right.’ Tosh had a big grin on her face. She turned and shouted. ‘Jack!’

Ianto heard the call and took up the shout, rushing down the stairs from the conference room. Jack skidded out of his office, ‘Have you done it?’ he asked, coming up short in front of Toshiko’s computer. 

Gwen shot round from her work station to see Jack, a look of total wonder on his face reach out to the little image. ‘Lyndel,’ he breathed. He looked up at Tosh, tears in his eyes. ‘Can you make it play?’ He took a hitched breath and stood hand over his mouth hanging on to the back of the chair for support.

‘I’m nearly there,’ Tosh told him. Carefully she moved her keyboard, the figure seemed unperturbed and now stood on the desk top. ‘That’s clever,’ she muttered.

Ianto stood behind Jack and held his shoulder. ‘That’s her is it?’ he asked quietly, and somewhat redundantly he thought later. ‘Your daughter Lyndel?’ 

Jack nodded, but there was no doubt. The little figure looked so like Jack it was uncanny. ‘She was sixteen,’ he said reverently. Lyndel had straight chestnut brown hair cut in a long bob. She wore some sort of head dress on the left side of her hair which was complimented by make up or a tattoo running down her jaw line on that side. The figure was too small to see much detail but the line of her jaw, the wide forehead and set of her eyes exactly matched those of her parent who was staring at her image with heart breaking longing. 

Her clothing was strange, light coloured wide trousers with a wrap type waist and a volumous white blouse. The clothing looked well worn, was obviously everyday wear rather than best. And she stood, with the little movement they could see, rocking forward onto the balls of her feet, just as Jack did when he was about to address someone about something important. It made them all smile.

Tosh’s fingers flew over her keys. Suddenly the figure took another step back and stuttered. ‘Wrong way,’ Tosh muttered. She looked up. ‘Wish me luck.’ Pushed a button. ‘Here we go.’

‘Hello Lee Lee,’ the hologram said.

Owen pushed a chair behind Jack as his knees gave out.

‘It’s me,’ the girl said. She laughed. ‘You know that, I mean it’s obvious.’ She glanced to one side as if checking with someone out of shot. ‘I hate doing this, you know me. Hate these messages. Always have. I so much want to see you. Haven’t seen you for so long.’ Her voice was quite deep for a girl and had the same not quite American accent that Jack had. It was intriguing to listen to. ‘It’s not fair Lee, you were nearly due for your leave, we had reservations. I don’t understand why you’re not coming this year.’ She took a deep breath and everyone smiled at the snarky teenager. ‘Nan says I have to hurry. We got your message, it was a strange way to get a message, but Nan says you are very clever and you wouldn’t have done that if you didn’t have to. I can’t believe you have done bad things Lee, not really bad things, ‘she sounded plaintive. ‘I can understand you doing things because you had to for what you do as an agent, but you wouldn’t do things that hurt other people. I know that.

‘Nan says that we might not see you ever again. That you are a great one for making promises you can’t always keep.’ Ianto could feel Jack shudder against him. ‘I don’t believe that Lee, you’ve always kept your promises to me.’ The girl sounded teary but pulled herself together. ‘Nan says to tell you that I’m doing well with my studies and I may be accepted for pilot training, the recruitment agency is watching to see how I go. I hope so, I want to fly. I think I would be good at it, you know how good I am with my flitter.’ She turned and faced to the side again, holding a spot on her throat that must have stopped the sound recording. She turned back. ‘Nan says to tell you she loves you and she doesn’t believe you’ve done bad things either.’ She leant forward conspiratively, ‘I think she knows you could but she trusts that you wouldn’t because she’s always going on about how she brought you up properly and she’ll do the same to me.’ She sighed, then she grinned, ‘she also said to say that she likes you wearing blue and you look very handsome.’ She looked up with a slightly pained smile. ‘I love you Lee. I know I won’t see you for a long time. I hug you. Travel safely.’

‘Hug you,’ Jack whispered.

The hologram faded out.

Jack rubbed a hand across his eyes. ‘Thank you,’ he choked. ‘Thank you.’

They were all teared up. ‘I can do it again,’ Tosh said. ‘I can make it play any time you want.’ Her fingers flashed over the keys. ‘It’s just a matter of resequencing the algorithms and putting it back to the beginning. It really wasn’t as hard as I thought it might be to work it out at all. I was expecting something much more advanced. It was just a matter of…’

‘Tosh love,’ Owen said, ‘it’s all right really. We don’t want to know.’

‘Do you want to see it again Jack?’ Ianto asked. ‘We can all go away and leave you in peace to look at it as much as you want.’

‘I…’ Jack leapt up. ‘No. I thought I’d remembered it word for word but… Not right now thanks. I think… I’ll just go up to my office for a bit.’ He pointed awkwardly. ‘I’ve got paperwork to do. Could you…’ he looked beseechingly at Ianto.

‘Coffee?’

‘Yeah.’

‘Jack, hang on,’ Tosh snagged a sheet of paper out of the printer and handed it to him. ‘I captured the image.’

Jack took the photo from her and gasped. 

Then he clutched it to his chest and turned and ran.

The cog door cranked open and he disappeared up the stairs.

ooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo  
Ianto gave him half an hour, then he took Jack’s coat and a coffee and went and joined him where he was sitting on the pier. He was pleased he hadn’t decided to camp out on any high building this time. Providing comfort for Jack when he was on the top of tall buildings made Ianto very uncomfortable, whatever Jack got out of it.

‘They’re all talking about you,’ he said handing over the coffee. The wind was cold even though the sun was shining. He draped the coat around the other man’s shoulders. ‘And we all think your daughter is beautiful and a real chip of the old block. She looks like she didn’t inherit any other DNA at all.’

Jack smiled wistfully. ‘She is beautiful. And she’s smart and funny.’ He grinned, ‘And charming. Hey how could she not be?’

‘Lee?’ Ianto said smiling at him, in some ways enjoying Jack’s look of discomfort. ‘Is that your name?’

Jack grimaced. ‘Nearly.’ He rolled his eyes. ‘All right, I know what you want to know but I won’t tell you my name, it’s too dangerous even here and now. I’ve been Jack Harkness for over a hundred years, I think that gives me the right to keep using the name. Lee is what Lyndel called me from when she was little. She couldn’t say my name properly, I was her mother but people didn’t know about that and they didn’t need to. And I wasn’t her father, although that’s what people assumed. So I was “Lee” and that suited us fine.’ He gave Ianto a glare. ‘Anything else?’

Ianto shifted Jack’s hand so he could see the photo too. ‘She is so lovely. You must have been beautiful at that age yourself.’

‘I was that age when she was born,’ Jack reminded him bitterly.

‘What happened Jack? Why were you leaving the Agency? What bad things had you done?’

Jack looked at him sadly. ‘I don’t know. I never found out. I woke up the morning I got this and knew something was really seriously fucking wrong. I was in the barracks but I wasn’t in what was my usual room, or I didn’t think I was. A lot of my things were missing and everything was in the wrong place. The cube was in my mail and I watched it straight away. No one had thought to stop it being delivered. I really knew things were fucked up then because Lyndel looked so different to how I remembered her, two years older in fact. There’s a big difference between fourteen and sixteen years old. It was a big shock. I had no idea what bad things she thought I’d done, but I’d obviously sent some sort of secret message home explaining things. I couldn’t remember any of it.’

He stared at the boards of the pier, lifetimes away. ‘By then I was starting to get an idea of what was going on. I felt strange, spaced out and when I went down to breakfast the mess hall was full of unfamiliar faces. People kept away from me, avoided me. That’s always a bad sign in a barracks. Then I caught a news vid and realised from the date that it really was two years later than when I thought I was. I wondered if I’d accidently jumped, except that I’d obviously tried to prepare my family for something going wrong. 

‘It all got clearer pretty quickly. I was called to the CO and told I’d had two years erased from my memories. Nothing about what had happened, nothing about why. I could now take a quiet duty for six months before being reassigned in some other galaxy or I could fuck the hell off because she never ever wanted to see me again. I don’t know, maybe I’d shagged her, she was an ugly bitch but you never know.’ He gave that depreciating grin. ‘I’d certainly done something to piss her off.’

He smiled bitterly. ‘I thought about my daughter and of forgetting two years of her life and I chose option two.’

Ianto gripped his hand. 

‘I was returned to my room, my bags were packed and I was forcibly evicted from the base. They wouldn’t let me take the cube out of the reader although they did let me keep my cube box - once they’d emptied it and destroyed the contents in front of me. On the way out the gate one of the guards yanked me towards him and shook me up a bit. He told me he hoped my private parts dropped off.’ He grinned. ‘Trouble was I couldn’t remember him, I’ve no idea whether I deserved it or not. But later,’ now he gave a genuine smile, ‘I found the cube in my pocket.’

Jack stroked a finger over the photograph. ‘The bastards had erased two years of my memories of everything,’ he said bitterly, ‘Lyndel as well.’ He drew around the shape of her face. ‘This girl, she’s so much older, more self assured and mature than my other memories of her. She’s a young woman.’ His voice softened. ‘The girl I remember wanted to fly but she also wanted to ride sea mammals and make the galaxy’s softest cotton candy. She couldn’t drive a flitter, she was still a child.’ He touched the head dress, ‘And she certainly didn’t wear the Tora and proclaim herself a woman, not the way I remembered her.’ He made a moue at Ianto. ‘You have no idea what I’m talking about have you?’

‘Some sort of rite of passage,’ Ianto hazarded a guess.

‘Yeah. A celebration of coming of age.’ He pointed to the line on the girl’s jaw. ‘That’s a custom for the women on my world. We venerate women and their child bearing abilities. Ironic really, no one was venerating me when I proved I could do it.’ He gave himself a mental shake. ‘This line, the Tora says the wearer is mature enough to bear children. It is applied in a special ceremony, a celebration a bit like the Christian first communion around a girl’s fifteenth birthday. I don’t even know if I was there for hers.’

‘And this hat thing?’

‘That’s just fashion, but it draws your eye to the Tora doesn’t it? Sort of shouts, look at me, I’m available.’

Ianto nearly laughed.

‘My daughter is all grown up.’

They sat for some time, staring out to sea. Ianto took Jack’s hand and stroked it. ‘So did you see her again?’

Jack gave him a heart broken look. ‘No.’ He buried his head in his hands. ‘No. It was too dangerous. I had no idea what I’d done, who I’d pissed off, didn’t even know who to be looking out for. There was no way I was going to go home and risk bringing god-knows-what after my family. I thought I’d find out what had happened, work it out, sort things out, pay people off, whatever it took. But I never found out.’ 

He peered up at Ianto. ‘And in the meantime I thought I’d better make some money, for that pay off if I ever needed it. Found out that having a pretty face was really helpful at distracting people when they were making decisions, didn’t mind sleeping with them either if it was going to help seal a deal. Quite liked that way of life really… At the time. 

‘I was pissed off and annoyed, couldn’t go home. ‘Alcohol, drugs, sex. At least I’m not like John, never got into murder like he did. Was pretty close to being like him in other ways though. Being destructive felt quite good.’ He stroked the photo again sadly. 

‘A few years later, quite a lot of money stashed away, some of it sent home through roundabout means, but no messages, never, because it wasn’t safe…’ He gave a pained sigh. ‘Then I met the Doctor and Rose and you know all of what’s happened since. I can’t go home.’ He gave Ianto a small smile and caught his hand again. ‘I’ve told you this before, I wouldn’t have missed what’s happened for the world but in about three thousand and seventy years I will be able to catch up and if I stay out of her life until she is sixteen I should be able to see her again.’

‘She need never even know that it hasn’t been just a few years.’ Jack looked at the sky and gave a hysterical laugh. ‘It’s a long time to wait but it still beats never.’


	7. Chapter 7

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Last chapter. I thought I’d saved myself from too much of a cheesy ending but realise there is still a bit in there.

A week later they got a call – from the farm where Jack had first been attacked by the weta. Apparently, in a remote corner of a back paddock the farmer discovered half a dozen dead cows. They were, according to the description given by the agricultural ministry official who attended the scene, “ripe to the stage of bursting.” Then they had burst and disgorged a clutch of enormous insects. Either Jack’s weta had moved spectacularly quickly when they went after it, or there had been another one that had survived long enough to lay eggs.

They all crowded into the SUV and drove out there. Jack had taken one look at the shaking and heaving of the cattle carcases as the juvenile insects devoured their well seasoned breakfast and gone back to the SUV. He came back toting a flame thrower and completely ignoring Owen’s protests had stormed in and blasted the scene.

Part of Jack was primed to hate the creatures just because of what had happened to him, but what the others didn’t know was that he had a pathological dislike, he wouldn’t go so far as to call it a hatred and he definitely didn’t call it a fear, but certainly had a dislike of any creature from any planet that had more than four limbs. These things were giant insects and they had six legs and long, long waving antennae. 

The trouble was he didn’t think the fire thing through. As most of the juveniles were inside the carcasses, all he did was make them mad. They came racing out of the carcasses screaming – running straight at the team as they tried to escape the flames. The group turned and ran. Unfortunately Ianto stuck his foot in a rabbit hole and fell, breaking his ankle. He lay there, trying frantically to get up as the horrible beasts came running at him. It was a nasty moment for everyone with no one close enough to get to him. Fortunately they weren’t actually mad, just panicked so when they got to the man on the ground they and all of their six legs just ran straight over him and kept going.

Jack carried Ianto back to the farmhouse and got him settled on a sofa with ice on his ankle and the farmer’s sixteen year old daughter practising her first aid skills on him. They both had a bit of a moment as they remembered another farm house in the country but this one was nothing like that. Jack just hoped that the girl wouldn’t decide Ianto needed mouth to mouth.

He went back out and joined in the hunt for the juvenile weta. He was really mad now and quite pleased that they had no choice but to shoot them. The rest of the team also enjoyed the target practice. 

They shot nine of them in the end. They had no idea how many there had been in the first place. A close eye would have to be kept on the place until they knew if there were any survivors and if any of them could breed.

oooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo

Later Jack sat in his office doing “paperwork” but really watching Ianto sleep on the couch. They’d taken him to the local casualty where Jack had stayed with him for the hours it took for him to be seen to. They really would have been better off just going home. The place was frantically busy and understaffed in the way of all community hospitals. Ianto had refused to let Jack make the system hurry up. He was not seriously injured he insisted and he would take his turn. Eventually he was xrayed and the fracture confirmed. By then, his ankle was swollen to the size and rough shape of a rugby ball. It was VERY painful. It was too swollen to be plastered and the actual break turned out to be only minor, a small bone at the top of his foot. It was the torn ligaments and soft tissue injuries that were causing the real problems. He was bandaged and the harried doctors sent him home with a pair of crutches and instructions to take paracetamol for pain. 

Jack was not allowing him home alone and that was that. That suited Ianto fine because he really didn’t want to go home. And besides, Owen had much better pain killers at the Hub. It was the fault of the pain killers that he fell asleep on the couch in Jack’s office, and Jack was fine with that. He’d fetched pillows and blanket, elevated his ankle, loosened his clothing, tucked him in and gone back to sit at his desk and keep watch. It always upset him when one of the team got hurt. It upset him a lot when it was Ianto. It wasn’t that Ianto wasn’t tough and resilient, it was just that Jack never quite felt that Ianto was right for field work and he couldn’t work out why.

It took Jack quite a while to realise that he himself was being watched. He looked up to see Tosh leaning in the doorway a soft look on her face.

‘What?’ he asked. He didn’t have to speak quietly, a bomb wouldn’t wake Ianto at the moment, but he couldn’t help himself.

She smiled at him. ‘Nothing.’

‘Right.’

She smiled some more. ‘It’s nice.’ She paused awkwardly. ‘Nice that you care.’

Jack just rolled his eyes. Tosh knew that he cared. ‘I thought I told everyone to go home. Did you need something?’

‘Oh yes, well no. I don’t actually need anything. But, I worked something out.’

‘What Tosh?’

‘Remember I asked you where your home planet is?’

Jack nodded, it was just after she’d made his hologram play.

‘Well,’ she said, hugely pleased with herself. ‘You’ll never believe it but it is pretty close to exactly three thousand and seventy light years away.’

Jack raised his eyebrows. That was a familiar number but he didn’t get what she was excited about.

Tosh tried to slow down her racing thoughts and explain. ‘It is three thousand and seventy years until you leave the Time Agency right?’

Jack nodded. 

‘It would take that long for a light signal from here to reach there, provided nothing interfered with it of course.’ She looked at him so excited. ‘Jack the window of opportunity is perfect.’ She was glowing. ‘You can send a message home and it will get there pretty close to the time your family last heard from you.’

Jack was shocked. ‘What?’

‘You can send a message to your daughter. I can’t guarantee she will actually receive it but I can target it to the recording device that made your hologram. It should catch the signal. I assume that device belongs to your daughter or your mother; it’s in their house I mean. I am also guessing that they leave it receiving, like we do with email so it will catch any message sent?’ Jack thought back and nodded. ‘It will only be two dimensional but they should have no trouble seeing or hearing it, as long as …’ She trailed off. She took in the incredulous look of hope on Jack’s face. ‘You can send a message home Jack. Do you want to?’

‘Yes,’ he said overwhelmed. ‘Oh Tosh, yes please.’

She grinned. ‘I’ll get it set up tomorrow. All you have to do is record a message on the camcorder. You can leave the rest to me.’

‘I…’ The possibilities raced through his head. ‘I don’t know what…’ He looked up at her awed. ‘What should I say?’

‘I don’t know Jack. Have a think about it overnight. Have a think about it for days if you need to. There is no hurry.’ She smiled gently. ‘Are you all right with Ianto? Do you want to get him to bed?’

Jack smiled fondly at the figure on the couch. ‘No, I think he’s fairly comfortable where he is. You go home. I’ll see you in the morning.’ He got up and gathered her in for a hug. ‘Thank you Tosh.’

ooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo  
Jack looked up from the camcorder he was playing with when Ianto shuffled into his office. Ianto made a pissed off noise and dropping a crutch flung his toilet bag at Jack. Jack caught it. ‘Did you manage all right in the shower?’ he asked innocently.

Ianto hopped the rest of the way to the couch and collapsed on it. ‘Of course I did, as well you know.’ He fixed Jack with a glare. ‘As soon as I’m back on my feet I am removing the cameras from the staff bathroom. I thought they were disabled but obviously I thought wrong.’

‘I was just checking you were okay,’ Jack told him. ‘What if you’d fallen over?’ He smirked. ‘You really shouldn’t have done that full frontal thing.’ 

Ianto looked at the digital recorder. ‘Please tell me you weren’t taping me in the shower.’

Jack smirked some more. ‘Of course not. But you shouldn’t have done that while Tosh was in here.’

Ianto crashed his head back into the cushions and groaned. ‘I didn’t think things could get any worse.’ Swearing and cursing he squirmed around trying to make himself comfortable. Jack had the good sense not to offer to help. ‘I hate this couch. I can’t believe you let me sleep here all night. Have you ever smelt it?’Jack decided it was better not to answer that either, he’d have a sniff of it later when no one was around and see what he meant. Eventually Ianto lifted his head up and asked, ‘So what are you doing with the camera then?’

‘Tosh says she can send a message to my home, some sort of digital signal patched onto a TV signal targeted to the recorder that made Lyndel’s hologram or something. By the time the signal gets from here to there, the time will be right for Lyndel to receive it.’ He turned the camera over and over. ‘I don’t know how she does it but she’s sure it will work.’ He looked at Ianto pleadingly. ‘I don’t know what to say.’

Ianto felt a different sort of exasperation come over him. ‘Tell her you love her. Tell her what you told me the other day; you’re going to do everything in your power to come back to her one day. That’s what she needs to know.’

Jack smiled. ‘You’re right. That’s good.’ He grinned. ‘I’m over thinking. Best just to do it. I know what I can’t say, I’ll just steer clear of that and…’

‘Jack, it’s not going to go out live is it?’

‘No.’

‘So you can take as much time as you like to get it right. Just…’

‘Relax?’ Jack suggested.

‘Exactly.’

‘I need the tripod. Did we have that…?’

‘Downstairs? Yeah. Try looking on the floor in your wardrobe.’

Jack shot up and dropped down the hatch to his room. Ianto levered himself up and hopped over to the desk. He needed to check what was on the camera. He really didn’t want Jack passing anything on to Tosh that might show her more than she had already seen.

Jack took quite a while to come back up and when he did he had changed into one of his dark blue shirts and moussed his hair. ‘Do I look all right?’ he asked.

Ianto grinned. ‘You look gorgeous. Has that got anything to do with your mother thinking you looked handsome in blue?’

Jack shrugged. ‘Yeah, well, I thought I should try and look good for them. You never know. This might be the last message they ever get from me.’

‘Stop being maudlin.’

‘Sorry.’ Jack carefully set up the tripod and camera facing his desk. ‘I thought about going outside somewhere, showing them a bit of this world.’ He fiddled around getting the angle right. ‘I would have liked to show them the view from the roof.’ He shrugged. ‘It’s not safe. Even though John says the Time Agency doesn’t exist, I could still have enemies who could track me down. I can’t take that risk.’ He looked at Ianto tenderly, ‘It’s not me, I can’t risk you.’

‘Yes, well if John was supposed to be your friend I really am not looking forward to meeting any of your enemies.’

‘Exactly,’ Jack said seriously.

Jack pulled a chair over by the camera. ‘Can you work the camera, check it’s pointed right.’

The camera had a remote that allowed it to be turned on and off from in front of it but Jack wanted Ianto there. ‘Sure,’ Ianto said. He sat himself down behind the camera while Jack sat at his desk. Jack fluffed his hair and smoothed his shirt. He smiled at him. ‘You look fine,’ Ianto reassured him. ‘Okay?’ 

Jack nodded.

‘Ready?’

Jack nodded again, ‘Okay.’

Ianto turned the camera to record.

Jack looked past the camera, looked at him and smiled. Then he took a deep breath and smiled at the camera. ‘Hi Lyndel. Hi honey. It’s Lee.’ The longing in his voice was palpable.

‘I don’t know if you will ever get this message. It is being sent to you from another time and place far away from where you are. A very clever friend of mine is organising sending it because I can’t send anything through the usual channels.’ His voice was breathy and nervous. ‘Lyndel sweetheart, I miss you so much. I love you and I promise you I will do everything in my power to see you again one day. I just can’t promise when but I intend to spend as much of your life with you as I can. Remember honey, I always keep my promises to you.’

Jack stopped and stared at the camera for so long that Ianto nearly turned it off. He nodded encouragingly and Jack kept going.

‘It is really hard to know what to tell you. So many strange things have happened to me since I saw you last.’ Jack settled down and his voice sounded more natural. ‘It has been a very long time in my time line. Time travel has caused me to become involved in all sorts of things and because of the chances of paradox I really can’t tell you what they are or even where or when I am now. I was not a good person when I left, I know that.’ That thought had obviously weighed on Jack for all these years. ‘I was a coward. I hurt you and sweetheart I am so sorry for that.’ He leaned earnestly into the camera. ‘Lyndel, the Time Agency turned out to be a bad thing for me and for a few years after I left I did some stuff I really regret. But I want you to know that I’ve changed.

‘I met someone. A very good someone, well two people actually, and they changed me. You’ve got no idea how I changed…’ Jack looked up and gave Ianto a weak grin before turning back to the camera. ‘And now I’ve met someone else since, someone who believes in me,’ he gave Ianto a heartbreaking smile. ‘Someone who loves me.’ The smile widened. ‘I love him.’ He held Ianto’s surprised gaze for a minute before continuing as if he hadn’t said anything more important than “I love coffee.”

‘We do really important work and I think… ‘ He swallowed. ‘No, I know, I’m happy right now.’ Ianto felt the smile growing wider on his own face and the warmth in Jack’s eye showed he’d noticed.

‘You wouldn’t believe what I am doing now, what I’ve been doing for a long time, but I am so proud of myself for what it is. I…, well a friend of mine says, I’m helping to save the world.’ Jack paused a minute as his emotions threatened to derail his speech. ‘It’s not just this world, it’s all worlds and all of humanity. I’m not the same man anymore and I want you to be proud of me. I think you would be.

‘I am so proud of you sweetheart. I want you to grow up to be whatever you want to be. Follow your heart but make sure you plan for contingencies. Go to school and study hard in all your subjects so if your first choice of career doesn’t work out you’ve got options. The only thing I want to say is don’t do anything involving time travel. Please sweetheart, when I’m able to come find you I want to know where you’ll be. Darling there is so much I want to say to you. I will try to come some day, I really will.

‘Look after your Nan, tell her I love her. I love you sweetheart, so very much. You are in my heart always. Hug you.’

Jack looked up at Ianto who nodded. He turned the camera off.

They sat in silence for a few minutes.

‘Well,’ Ianto said getting up carefully. ‘You melted my heart.’ He couldn’t quite process what he’d just heard, he was in shock. He collected his crutches with a groan. ‘I’m going to go make some coffee. Then I think I’m going home.’ He shushed Jack when he started to protest. ‘I love you too Jack, I really do, but the trip from the couch to the bathroom is just too much like an obstacle course around here.’ He hobbled to the door. ‘If you want a cup you’ll have to come and get it. I can’t carry it.’ He left the room. He needed to be alone.

ooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo

Ianto did a round of coffees then Gwen took him home. She came up to the flat to check he was settled and then reluctantly left him to it when he told her to go. Ianto settled himself on his clean unsmelly couch and realised something he’d never noticed. At this time of the year his front room was flooded with sunlight. It was warm and bright and a complete contrast to a grimy underground bunker. 

He had a pleasant nap, to make up for his crappy night then he lay there dozing in front of the Discovery channel, revelling in the unexpected pleasure of having nothing he needed to do. He wasn’t used to it, nothing to do, no duties to see to. He wasn’t ill, he was just sore when he moved so there was nothing wrong with his thought processes and with nothing to think about his mind wandered all over the place.

Jack had just publically declared he loved him. Well sort of publically, it was an announcement that wouldn’t be heard for another three thousand and seventy odd years, but even so. He had honestly never expected Jack to say it in any way, ever. Jack had come up to the coffee machine five minutes after him obviously terrified he’d frightened Ianto off. His insecurities were just projecting off him. A thorough snogging had helped put that to rest, although being watched by Owen had rather taken the shine off it. Jack promised to come round later.

So now he lay there and thought about Jack. He’d learnt a lot about him recently. He thought about sixteen year old Jack, nowhere to go and living on his looks. Ianto had been in a similar situation himself at a similar age, but without all the complications that Jack had had to contend with –war, father dead, brother lost, best friend dead, blaming himself. Ianto had barely survived his experience, was still badly scarred by it and he’d simply been running from a family and a life that didn’t seem to accept him. And then to be picked up and kept by someone like Albie. Ianto had met Albies himself, knew how good it was to have a brief respite from working the streets, to have a semblance of a home. Knew too that it always ended badly. It wasn’t like Pretty Women. The John always moved on, always discarded you.  
He wasn’t sure if Jack knew about that part of his past. He certainly hadn’t told him, but that didn’t mean he hadn’t found out. He didn’t have a record from that time, except for that stupid shoplifting thing, it may be that Jack had never discovered it. He supposed, at some stage he had better tell him. It seemed so long ago.  
But not nearly as long ago as Jack’s troubles had been.

Getting pregnant? Well that complication was never a probability for him. Thank God. Ianto had been very lucky to come away physically healthy, no STDs or worse, his scars were all mental. Jack however – well Jack had a daughter.

He thought about Jack having a daughter, yes that was a shock. Jack having female sex organs, that was surprising and somehow so very Jack. “I’ve been a freak all my life.” Ianto’s heart ached. Jack being pregnant, that was hugely hard to get his head around. Again, another dreadful story. No wonder Jack was so closed off, so unwilling to open himself to others. He’d been very badly used. At least the episode had led to him being reconciled with his mother, and he’d gained a family.  
By mid afternoon Ianto’s thoughts were running in other directions. The memory of Jack in that lovely blue shirt had caused quite a few thoughts, most of them involving removing it, then he’d segued on to blue eyes and other things and back to Jack’s mother thinking he looked handsome. Another thought intruded, his mind made a connection and he sat up and gasped. He grabbed the phone. He nearly rang Jack, and then nearly Tosh, and then he realised he couldn’t say anything to either of them. Not yet. It was probably just as well he hadn’t noticed it before. God damn! 

Ianto was expecting Jack to turn up at some stage, but probably not until around dinner time. He was just deciding to order in pizza when there was a knock on the door. He grinned. But then the knock came again which was odd, Jack would have let himself in. He struggled to the door to find Gwen and a load of groceries. She smiled at him, ‘I noticed you haven’t got any food. I had to shop for myself so I thought…’

He smiled and ushered her in. He had been wondering what he was going to do about breakfast in the morning. If Jack came over there wouldn’t be any pizza left over. ‘Thank you.’

‘Would you like me to cook you something?’

‘Ahh…’ Gwen was a crap cook. He was saved from answering by another knock at the door. It was Tosh. She seemed surprised to see Gwen. ‘Oh, I just came by to see if you needed anything?’

‘I’m fine, do you want to stay for tea. Gwen’s been shopping for me.’

‘Oh. Oh yeah, okay.’

Next to appear was Owen, just checking that Ianto had enough pain meds. Two minutes behind him was Jack.

‘You know what,’ Gwen suggested, ‘why don’t I ring Rhys, see if he wants to come cook? He’s a good cook.’ They’d been seeing a bit of Rhys since he now knew about them and what they did.

It developed into quite a party.

Ianto sat in the middle of it, feet up on his couch, mixing wine and painkillers, slightly spaced out and very happy. ‘Did you send Jack’s message?’ he asked Tosh as they finished their dinner.

‘Yes. It’s out there. Beaming its way across the universe as we speak.’

‘Think of all those hours of television signals wafting out across the universe,’ Gwen added. ‘What the hell are alien life forms going to think when they find this marvellous new signal that proves there is life on other planets and it is the first ever episode of Days of Our Lives?’

‘Better that than Teletubbies,’ Ianto told her.

‘Oh god,’ Tosh moaned. ‘It’s embarrassing isn’t it?’

‘What is?’ Jack asked. He’d been helping Owen clean up. He wasn’t quite sure how that had panned out but the girls had insisted.

‘Other civilisations first notion of us,’ Rhys told him. ‘The teletubbies.’ He thought for a minute. ‘Or the wombles.’

‘Basil Brush.’

‘Rolf Harris.’

‘The Six Million Dollar Man or Maxwell Smart.’

‘Christ,’ Owen put in, ‘if they hit the X Files we’ll be destroyed as a potential threat to the universe.’

‘And in all that clutter,’ Ianto said quietly, ‘Tosh can target a particular message to one recipient.’

Tosh smiled proudly. ‘I think I can, yes.’

Jack carefully shifted Ianto’s feet and sat down, lifting his feet into his lap. Ianto noticed Rhys’ look of shock. So he hadn’t known then. That was interesting. Jack removed his sock and proceeded to play with the toes on his uninjured foot while Ianto nearly purred with pleasure. They shared a smile. ‘Tell us some more about this Time Agency Jack. Why did you join?’

Jack shrugged. ‘It was a mistake. I thought I’d be doing good. I guess I was but it was hard to tell.’

‘That’s where you met John Hart, right?’ Tosh asked. She was still rather interested in the Time Agent.

‘Yes.’ Ianto felt Jack’s thighs tense under his legs, he doubted the others would notice anything. ‘We paired up. We ah… got on well together.’

‘Obviously,’ Owen said drily.

Ianto saw an opening, and besides, this subject needed changing. ‘So what was the story with the period battle dress costumes? Was that a tradition or a uniform?’

Jack smiled. ‘A tradition I guess. We were modern warriors but what we did was supposed to be built on the foundations of all of humanity’s warriors. So if we got assignments somewhere,’ he shrugged, ‘sometime with military uniforms we fancied we would acquire one for ourselves.’ He smiled, ‘John got that coat from some French whore who nabbed it off a mark that didn’t pay, but he swears he won it in battle. I reckon he even believes that by now.’

‘So why did you go for 1940s Airforce uniform?’ It was after all a question they’d all wondered in the past. Ianto glanced across to Gwen and Rhys sitting on the floor. Rhys’ mouth was wide open. He wondered how much Gwen had told him about their boss. At least he had the good sense to keep quiet.

‘I don’t think Jack really wants to tell us that,’ Tosh cut in.

‘It’s all right,’ Jack told her. ‘I didn’t start wearing that until about 60 years ago. I’d worn it once in the past when I’d been here and when I ended up in the forties again, well I was comfortable in it.’ He shrugged, ‘I look good in that coat.’ The others groaned. ‘So it made sense to keep the whole look. I liked it. Heh,’ he held his hands out and gave them that grin. ‘I look good in these clothes.’

Gwen tossed a cushion at him. Owen rolled his eyes. ‘You are one arrogant bastard Harkness, you know that.’

‘Me? Never.’ 

‘So what did you wear when you were in the Time Agency?’ Ianto asked. ‘What battle dress did you pick?’

Jack’s smile dimmed and he clasped Ianto’s foot in his hand. ‘I wore the same clothes I’d always worn, what I’d worn at home.’ He bit his lip. ‘I was honouring my father and all the others who died trying to save their families when our world was invaded.’ 

Ianto reached over and took his hand. ‘I’m sorry Jack.’

Jack nodded and sighed. ‘So,’ he said cheerily, ‘who’s for a game of strip poker?’

That cleared the room. Within half an hour they’d all gone. Jack came back from seeing Gwen and Rhys to the door. ‘Bed?’ he suggested.

Ianto stretched. ‘Oh, I don’t know. I’ve been resting all day. I am not tired in the slightest.’ He grinned. ‘A cup of tea would be nice.’ This was fun, ordering Jack around.

Jack came back with two mugs of tea and a packet of chocolate biscuits. He shifted Ianto along so he could sit behind him and pull him in against his chest. ‘Are you all right?’

Ianto smiled. ‘Yes I’m fine. Really fine.’ He indicated the now empty room. ‘This, tonight, this was good.’ He smiled and turned to give Jack a soft kiss. ‘This is our family.’

Jack smiled back but Ianto could see the other thoughts hovering behind his eyes. ‘Are you thinking about your family?’ he asked quietly. ‘About Lyndel?’

‘Yes.’

‘She got your message you know.’

‘What?’

Ianto turned round so he could see him. ‘She got your message, I’m sure of it.’

‘You can’t know that.’

Ianto ran his fingers down the blue shirt that Jack was still wearing. ‘You do look handsome in blue. In this shirt.’ 

Jack smiled. ‘I do. Yes.’

Ianto straightened the collar. ‘In this shirt,’ he emphasised.

Jack was looking at him sideways, trying to follow Ianto’s lead. Then suddenly he got it. ‘Oh my god!’ He dropped back into the seat. ‘I never wore blue. My clothes were cream and neutral colours. Mum would never have seen me wearing colours at all.’ His eyes were wide with shock.

Ianto kissed his open mouth as he placed his hand under his chin to close it. ‘That’s what I thought,’ he said gently.

‘Oh my god,’ Jack said again as Ianto pulled him into a hug. He was trembling slightly. Ianto held him as he processed the enormity of it. Eventually he was able to speak again. ‘She said it was an odd way to get a message. I always thought I’d found a way to send something outside of usual channels, so the Agency wouldn’t know I’d sent it, but she meant a really strange way to receive a message, a 2D image, not a hologram like she was used to.’ He suddenly sat upright. ‘So that the bad things I said I’ve done… Ianto, what did I say?’

Ianto thought back to this morning in the office. ‘You said that for a short while you were a bad person who didn’t care what you did or who you hurt, but that you’ve changed.’

‘I always thought that meant I’d done bad things with the Time Agency. I mean I know I had, but I thought I must have done something really awful.’ He was white with shock. ‘Ianto, it was part of the reason I left the Agency. If I hadn’t got Lyndel’s cube that morning… I mean I was really pissed about the missing time and losing out on time with her, but I was also so upset that she thought I’d been bad. It was what tipped it for me.’ He gave a compulsive shudder and wrapped his arms tightly around his lover. ‘If I hadn’t done that, well I’d never have ended up here. I wouldn’t be what I am.’

‘I know,’ Ianto said softly. And I’m thankful for it, he thought selfishly.

Eventually Jack’s mouth quirked up into a wry smile. ‘I am what I am.’ He shrugged. ‘Time travel can be a real bitch at times.’

‘Yup,’ Ianto stood up carefully. He hadn’t been upright for hours. ‘Come on then Lee. Let’s go to bed.’ He smiled fondly at the time traveller on his couch. ‘Lee. That is your name isn’t it? I like it. It suits you.’ He bent down and kissed him. ‘Come to bed,’ he said lasciviously, ‘and you can call me any name you like.’


End file.
